THE 'NEW 
EVANGELISM 


Henry  Drummond 

•:&: 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORN  A 


3  182202201  2686 


THE  NEW  EVANGELISM 


THE 


NEW  EVANGELISM 


AND    OTHER    ADDRESSES 


BY 


HENRY    DRUMMOND 

AUTHOR  OF  "  NATURAL  LAW  IN  THE  SPIRITUAL  WORLD 
ETC. 


NEW   YORK 

DODD,  MEAD   AND   COMPANY 
1899 


Copyright,  1899, 
BY  DODO,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY. 


All  rig-fits  reserved. 


ISntbrtsttg 
JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE,  U.S.A. 


NOTE 

WITH  the  exception  of  the  articles  on  "  The  Contri- 
bution of  Science  to  Christianity,"  and  "  Spiritual  Diag- 
nosis" which  appeared  in  The  Expositor,  none  of  the 
following  papers  were  intended  for  publication,  nor  were 
they  revised  by  the  Author.  In  a  few  cases  portions 
of  the  manuscript  are  missing ;  and  such  omissions  are 
shown  by  asterisks. 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

THE   NEW    EVANGELISM,    AND    ITS    RELATION   TO 

CARDINAL  DOCTRINES 3 

THE  METHOD  OF  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY,  AND  SOME 

OF  ITS  APPLICATIONS 63 

SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 87 

THE  THIRD  KINGDOM 119 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  FOREIGN  MISSIONS 161 

THE  CONTRIBUTION  OF  SCIENCE  TO  CHRISTIANITY  .  205 

SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS 257 


The   New  Evangelism 
and  its   Relation   to 
Cardinal   Doctrines 


Paper  read  to  Free  Church  Tlieological 
Society,  Glasgow 


The   New  Evangelism:    and  its 
Relation  to  Cardinal  Doctrines 

IT  is  no  small  heroism  in  these  times  to 
deal  with  anything  new.  But  this  is  a 
theological  society;  and  I  do  not  need  to 
ask  the  protection  of  that  name  while  I  move 
for  a  little  among  lines  of  thought  which 
may  seem  to  verge  on  danger.  One  does 
not  need  to  apologise  for  any  inquiry  made 
in  £  formative  school  of  theology  such  as 
this ;  for  in  this  atmosphere  a  seeker  after 
truth  is  compelled  to  take  up  another  than 
that  provincial  standpoint  which  elsewhere 
he  is  committed  to. 

The  question  you  will  naturally  ask  at  the 
outset  is,  What  is  the  new  Evangelism? 
Now  that  is  a  question  that  I  cannot  an- 
swer. I  do  not  know  what  the  new  Evan- 
gelism is,  and  it  is  because  I  do  not  know 
that  I  write  this  paper.  I  write  because  I 


4  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

ought  to  know,  and  am  trying  to  know. 
Many  here,  and  all  the  most  earnest  minds 
of  our  Church,  are  anxiously  asking  this 
question,  and  each  who  has  once  asked  it 
feels  it  to  be  one  of  the  chief  objects  of  his 
life  to  answer  it. 

Preachers,  finding  that  the  things  which 
stirred  men's  minds  two  centuries  ago  fail  to 
do  so  now,  are  compelled  to  ask  themselves 
what  this  means.  Do  we  need  a  new  Evan- 
gelism, and  if  so,  what  ?  By  the  word  Evan- 
gelism I  do  not  mean  to  include  merely,  or 
even  particularly,  evangelistic  work,  evangel- 
istic meetings,  or  what  is  comprehended 
under  the  general  head  of  revivalism.  I 
mean  the  methods  of  presenting  Christian 
truth  to  men's  minds  in  any  form.  By  the 
new  Evangelism,  so  far  as  mere  definition  is 
concerned,  is  meant  the  particular  substance 
and  form  of  evangel  which  is  adapted  to  the 
present  state  of  men's  minds.  The  new 
Evangelism,  in  a  word,  is  the  Gospel  for  the 
Age.  To  notice  the  outcry  against  the 
mere  mention  of  a  Gospel  for  the  Age  is 
unnecessary  here.  What  do  we  want  with 


THE  NEW   EVANGELISM  5 

a  new  Gospel  ?  Can  the  Gospel  ever  be  old  ? 
might  be  asked  elsewhere,  for  this  is  always 
cast  in  one's  teeth  when  he  raises  those  ques- 
tions, as  if  by  speaking  of  a  new  Evangelism 
he  was  depreciating  the  old  Gospel.  Of 
course  we  do  not  want  a  new  evangel,  we 
state  that  out  at  once ;  but  an  Evangelism  is 
a  different  thing,  and  we  do  want  that ;  we 
want  that  at  the  present  hour,  almost  above 
any  reform  of  our  time. 

I.   The  need  of  a  new  Evangelism. 

There  are  two  general  considerations 
which  seem  to  me  to  prove  the  need  of  a 
new  Evangelism. 

The  first  is  the  threatened  decline  of  vital 
religion  under  present  methods  of  preaching. 
If  the  Gospel  be  the  power  of  God  unto  sal- 
vation, we  are  entitled  to  believe  that  wher- 
ever it  is  presented  to  men's  minds  it  will 
influence  and  impress  them.  If  men  are 
not  influenced  or  impressed  under  preaching, 
the  only  alternatives  are,  either  that  the 
Gospel  in  substance  is  not  the  power  of  God 
unto  salvation,  or  that  the  Gospel  in  form  is 
not  presented  to  them  so  as  to  reach  them. 


6  THE   NEW  EVANGELISM 

Either  the  Gospel  cannot  save  them,  or  the 
Gospel  does  not  reach  them.  We,  as  Chris- 
tians, are  shut  up  to  the  latter.  The  Gospel 
is  not  reaching  men.  There  are  hundreds 
of  churches  where  the  Gospel  is  not  reaching 
men.  Every  third  minister  one  meets  con- 
fesses that.  The  Church,  as  a  whole,  admits, 
for  instance,  that  she  is  rapidly  losing  hold 
of  young  men  as  a  class.  What  does  that 
mean  ?  It  really  means  that  the  Gospel,  as 
presented  to  them,  has  ceased  to  be  a  gospel ; 
it  is  neither  good  nor  new.  It  means  that 
the  active  thinkers  of  a  congregation,  the 
most  hopeful  and  eager,  are  failing  to  find 
anything  there  to  meet  their  case.  It  is  not 
simply  that  many  of  them  object  to  religion 
naturally,  which  will  always  be  the  case,  but 
that  those  who  are  looking  for  a  religion  do 
not  find  it.  Many  of  ourselves  know  this  by 
our  own  experience.  How  long  did  we  not 
search ;  on  what  diverse  ministries  did  we 
not  wait;  to  what  endless  volumes  did  we 
not  turn ;  before  finding  a  message  which 
our  faith  could  grasp  or  conscience  rest  on, 
and  at  the  same  time  our  intelligence  re- 


THE  NEW  EVANGELISM  7 

spect?  "I  like  Christianity,"  said  Hallam, 
the  subject  of  Tennyson's  "  In  Memoriam," 
"because  it  fits  into  all  the  folds  of  one's 
nature."  How  long  was  it  before  we  found 
a  form  of  Christianity  which  fitted  into  any 
of  the  folds  of  our  nature  ?  From  the  time 
they  were  Sabbath-school  scholars  onwards, 
it  is  the  experience  of  thousands  of  young 
men  that  they  find  only  misfit  after  misfit  in 
the  theological  clothes  in  which  they  were 
asked  to  disguise  themselves.  If  this  has 
been  the  experience  of  men  who  were  not 
simply  passive  (men  who  were  not  simply 
waiting  until  religion  would,  some  day  or 
somehow,  seize  hold  of  them),  but  who  were 
searching  for  religion,  what  substance  is 
there  in  the  present  form  of  it  to  captivate 
the  ordinary  run  of  men  ?  Our  present 
Evangelism,  as  mere  matter  of  fact,  is  not 
meeting  the  wants  of  the  age. 

In  1847  Dr.  Chalmers  found  —  and  the 
statistics  almost  paralysed  him  —  that  there 
were  30,000  people  in  Glasgow  who  did  not 
go  to  church.  Since  then  the  Free  Church 
has  risen ;  Baptists,  Independents,  Morisoni- 


8  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

ans,  and  Wesleyans,  have  poured  their  new 
life  into  the  city.  The  most  complete  evan- 
gelistic organisation  in  the  kingdom,  the 
Christian  Union,  has  been  at  work.  Have 
Chalmers'  30,000  been  sensibly  reduced? 
They  have  been  increased  exactly  fivefold 
—  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  increase  of 
the  population.  Excluding  100,000  Roman 
Catholics,  there  are  at  present  150,000  non- 
church-goers  in  the  city.  The  aspect  of 
affairs  in  the  English  towns  is  notoriously 
worse.  To  take  a  single  case.  The  popu- 
lation of  Sheffield  is  240,000.  It  has  60 
churches.  Allowing  1,000  sitters  to  each 
church  there  would  only  be  accommodation 
to  60,000  people;  not  only,  therefore,  do 
180,000  not  go  to  church,  but  there  is  no 
accommodation  for  them  if  they  were  willing. 
What  is  the  cause  of  this  decline  in  vital 
religion  ?  Why  is  the  Gospel  not  reaching 
the  Age  ?  Because  it  is  not  the  Gospel  for 
the  Age.  It  is  the  Gospel  for  a  former  Age. 
Because,  in  the  form  of  it  as  used,  the  Gospel 
is  neither  good  nor  new.  It  does  not  fit  into 
all  the  folds  of  men's  being.  It  is  not  in 
itself  bad  —  but  it  is  a  bad  fit. 


THE   NEW   EVANGELISM  9 

The  second  general  consideration  is  based, 
not  on  the  effects  of  Evangelism,  but  on  its 
nature.  The  very  nature  of  truth  demands 
from  time  to  time  a  new  Evangelism.  At 
the  opening  of  this  college,  we  heard  (Prof. 
Bruce's  introductory  lecture)  that  a  Scotch 
divine  at  the  Presbyterian  Council  in  Phila- 
delphia found  himself  rebuked  for  using  the 
phrase,  "  Progress  in  Theology."  Theology, 
he  was  eloquently  reminded,  was  behind  us. 
He  was  pointed  to  the  Standards  of  his 
Church.  There  is  no  more  unfortunate  word 
in  our  Church's  vocabulary  than  "  Standard." 
A  standard  is  a  thing  that  stands.  Theology 
is  a  thing  that  moves.  There  must  be  prog- 
ress in  everything,  and  more  in  theology 
than  in  anything,  for  the  content  of  theol- 
ogy is  larger  and  more  expansive  than  the 
content  of  anything  else.  I  do  not  say  we  are 
to  give  up  the  idea  involved  in  the  word 
Standard.  We  certainly  never  can.  But 
standards  must  move.  The  sole  condition 
of  having  them  with  us  at  any  particular 
place  or  time  is  that  they  should  move  with 
us  according  to  place  or  time.  The  word 


io  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

Standard,  as  applied  to  theology,  is  in  some 
respects  an  unfortunate  term.  Buffon's  Nat- 
ural History  was  a  standard.  Linnaeus'  Vege- 
table System  was  a  standard.  But  they  are 
not  standards  now.  They  were  places  for 
the  mind  of  Science  to  rest  on  in  its  onward 
sweep  through  the  centuries ;  but  the  perches 
are  not  needed  there  now,  and  they  are 
vacant.  These  books  stand  like  deserted 
inns  on  the  roadside  which  gave  hearty  meals 
and  shelter  in  their  day,  but  which  the  race 
(with  no  disrespect  to  Linnaeus  and  Buffon) 
has  long  since  passed.  When  the  English 
fought  Waterloo,  they  did  not  leave  their 
standard  at  Bannockburn  —  they  brought  it 
up  to  Quatre  Bras ;  and  if  our  standard  was 
made  for  Holland,  or  Rome,  or  Geneva,  we 
must  bring  it  up  to  Germany,  and  Paris,  and 
the  Highlands.  But  there  is  something 
deeper  than  progress  in  theology;  there  is 
progress  in  truth  itself.  "  Truth  is  the 
daughter  of  Time."  It  is  surely  unnecessary 
to  insist  on  this,  for  it  is  true  of  all  kinds  of 
truth,  in  the  natural  as  well  as  the  spiritual 
sphere.  Nature  is  all  before  our  eyes,  as 


THE   NEW  EVANGELISM  n 

truth  in  the  Bible  is  all  before  our  eyes. 
But  we  do  not  see  it  all ;  every  day  we  are 
seeing  more.  The  firmament  was  not  all 
mapped  by  astronomers  at  once.  Since 
Calvin's  time  many  a  new  star  has  been  dis- 
covered. The  stars  were  there  before.  Space 
was  there  before,  but  a  new  order  is  seen  in 
it,  new  material  for  thought,  new  systems, 
especially  a  new  perspective.  To  take  an- 
other illustration  :  when  we  were  children  we 
could  not  understand  how,  if  God  made  the 
world,  He  had  made  it  so  ugly ;  why  every- 
thing in  nature  was  brown,  or  dun,  or  green, 
and  grey.  Why  was  the  sky  not  scarlet  like 
the  inside  of  our  trumpet,  or  a  good  hearty 
blue,  with  unicorns  on  it  like  our  drum  ? 
We  thought,  as  we  looked  at  the  lichens  and 
washed-out  azure,  that,  by  some  oversight, 
God  had  forgotten  to  put  the  colour  in.  We 
know  now  why  God  did  not  put  the  colour 
in.  We  know  that  Nature  wears  the  colour 
of  the  future.  It  is  painted  for  the  highest 
art.  Vermilion  is  for  the  savage,  blue  with 
unicorns  for  the  child,  the  neutral  tints  for  the 
world's  maturity  —  the  developed  taste.  The 


12  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

colour  was  in  Nature  all  along,  but  the 
world's  eye  was  not  full  grown.  The  Greeks 
had  almost  no  colour-sense  at  all ;  and  if  Mr. 
Ruskin  sees  what  Homer  did  not  see,  it  is 
not  because  it  was  not  to  be  seen,  but  that 
the  faculty  was  not  developed. 

The  higher  art  has  grown ;  it  sees  in  the 
colouring  of  Nature  a  beauty  which  must 
increase  till  the  evolution  of  mind  and  eye 
pronounces  and  sees  all  perfect.  It  is  so 
with  Truth ;  the  truth-sense,  like  the  colour- 
sense,  grows.  Truth  has  her  vermilion, 
and  her  high  art  olives  and  sage-greens. 
"  When  Solon  was  asked,"  says  Plutarch, 
"  if  he  had  given  the  Athenians  the  best 
possible  laws,  he  answered  that  they  were 
as  good  as  the  people  could  then  receive." 
When  we  were  given  our  system  of  truth,  it 
was  as  good  as  the  people  could  receive  — 
perhaps  as  good  as  their  teachers  could  give. 
But  we  can  receive  more  now;  our  taste 
demands  sage-green,  and  we  cannot  live  on 
vermilion.  If  it  be  objected  that  this  ar- 
gument renders  the  Bible  itself  effete,  the 
answer  is  that  the  Bible  is  not  a  system.  It 


THE   NEW   EVANGELISM  13 

is  the  firmament ;  its  truth  is  without  form, 
therefore  without  limit.  It  is  a  book  of 
such  boundless  elasticity  that  the  furthest 
growth  of  the  truth-sense  can  never  find  its 
response  outgrown.  And  it  is  in  this  elas- 
ticity that  one  finds  a  sanction  for  a  new 
theology  to  be  the  basis  of  a  new  Evangel- 
ism. It  encourages  a  new  theology;  the 
prospect  and  possibility  of  that  is  written  in 
every  epigram  and  paradox,  in  the  absence 
of  anything  prepositional  or  bound.  The 
view  we  are  to  take,  therefore,  of  the  old 
theologies  is  not  that  they  are  false,  but 
simply  that  they  are  old.  Those  who  framed 
them  did  in  their  time  just  what  we  want 
to  do  in  ours.  The  Reformation  did  not 
profess  to  create  new  truth ;  it  was  not  a 
re-formation,  but  simply  a  restoration  —  a 
restoration  of  the  first  theology  of  the  New 
Testament,  as  much  of  it  as  could  then  be 
seen.  At  the  time,  probably,  it  was  a  restor- 
ation, and  had  all  the  strength  and  grandeur 
of  the  first  theology,  with  all  its  vividness 
and  life.  Probably  it  was  suited  to  the 
wants  of  the  time,  and  moved  the  hearts  of 
preacher  and  people. 


14  THE   NEW  EVANGELISM 

We,  too,  can  still  preach  it,  but  to  some 
of  us  it  has  a  hollow  sound.  If  we  would 
confess  the  honest  truth,  our  words  for  it  are 
rather  those  of  respect  than  enthusiasm  ;  we 
read  it,  hear  it,  study  it,  and  preach  it,  but 
cannot  honestly  say  that  it  kindles  or  moves 
us.  When  we  wish  to  be  kindled  or  moved, 
driven  perhaps  to  prove  whether  we  are 
capable  of  being  kindled  or  moved,  we  leave 
the  restoration  and  go  back  to  that  which 
was  restored. 

Restoration  can  only  retain  its  hold  vitally 
and  powerfully  for  a  limited  time.  It  is  essen- 
tially an  accommodation  for  a  certain  age. 
If  that  age  has  changed,  it  no  longer  accom- 
modates me,  it  incommodes  me.  What  was 
the  new  theology  of  the  seventeenth  century 
is  the  theology  of  the  nineteenth  century 
only  on  one  condition  —  that  the  age  has  not 
grown.  If  it  has,  in  the  nature  of  things  it 
no  longer  accommodates  me.  It  is  not  bad, 
simply  a  bad  fit.  The  then  new  theology, 
the  very  adaptation  possibly  that  was  needed, 
becomes  now  old  doctrine,  a  mere  old  skull, 
an  old  skull  with  the  juices  dry.  This  is  the 


15 

source  of  what  is  called  dry  preaching.  It  is 
a  once  glorious  truth  disenchanted  by  time 
into  a  faded,  juiceless  form. 

Such  then  is  the  general  effect  of  Time  on 
Truth.  As  the  serpent  periodically  casts  its 
skin,  so  Truth.  The  number  of  times  it  has 
cast  its  skin  marks  the  number  of  stages  in 
its  forward  growth.  Many  of  the  shelves  of 
our  theological  libraries  are  simply  museums 
of  the  cast  skin  of  Truth.  The  living  organ- 
ism has  glided  out  of  them  to  seek  a  roomier 
vestment.  This  is  no  disrespect,  I  repeat 
again,  to  the  old  theology.  For  the  present 
vestiture  in  turn  must  take  its  place  on  the 
shelf.  Nor  does  it  imply  that  no  beauty 
exists  there,  nor  that  to  many  some  of  the 
old  doctrines  may  not  prove  even  to-day  a 
fountain  of  life.  They  do  do  so.  Many 
volumes  of  theology  have  never  been  out- 
grown ;  many  of  the  Puritans,  for  instance, 
have  not  only  never  been  outgrown,  but  it  is 
difficult  to  conceive  how  they  can  be.  To 
take  again  the  analogy  from  colour.  The 
sage-green  does  not  necessarily  destroy  the 
vermilion,  though  it  renders  many  of  its 


16  THE   NEW  EVANGELISM 

combinations  old-fashioned.  Some  forms  of 
truth  in  like  manner  may  have  reached  their 
ultimate  expression,  certainly  they  may, 
though  this  is  not  so  clear  as  that  some  have 
not.  To  sum  up,  the  demand  for  a  new 
theology,  therefore,  as  the  basis  of  a  new 
Evangelism  is  founded  upon  the  nature  of 
Truth.  It  is  not  caprice,  nor  love  of  what  is 
new.  It  is  the  necessity  for  what  is  new. 
It  is  in  the  nature  of  things. 

I  have  next  to  bring  some  more  specific 
charges  against  the  old  theology  —  the  old 
theology,  that  is  to  say,  as  represented  in  the 
ordinary  preaching  of  the  day.  And  lest  I 
should  be  accused  of  caricaturing  the  doc- 
trines in  question,  let  me  say  that  the  render- 
ing which  follows  represents  the  impression 
made  as  matter  of  fact  by  these  doctrines 
upon  myself.  I  do  not  implicate  the  whole 
Evangelism,  nor  do  I  speak  directly  for  any 
one  else ;  but  I  cannot  more  honestly  illus- 
trate the  teaching  of  what  was  to  me  the 
current  Evangelism  —  the  pabulum,  namely, 
supplied  by  the  ordinary  country  pulpit,  by 
the  evangelist's  address,  by  the  Sabbath- 


THE   NEW   EVANGELISM  17 

school  teacher,  and  in  a  limited  sense  by  re- 
ligous  books  and  tracts  —  than  by  stating  the 
sort  of  relisfious  ideas  which  these  fostered 

O 

in  myself.  For  convenience  I  select  three 
as  samples,  taking  them  in  theological  order. 
I  limit  myself  likewise  to  a  very  few  sentences 
with  regard  to  each,  more  particularly  (i)  as 
to  the  theological  conception  and  (2)  as  to 
the  ethical  effect. 

(i)  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  as  fostered  by 
the  old  Evangelism. 

The  chief  characteristic  of  the  conception 
of  God  to  me  was  its  want  of  characteristic. 
The  figure  was  too  vague  for  any  practical 
purpose.  It  was  not  a  character.  One 
could  form  no  intelligent  figure  of  God,  for 
so  far  as  it  could  be  formed  it  was  the  God 
of  the  Old  Testament.  The  Incarnation, 
i.  £.,  contributed  nothing.  {/The  Old  Testa- 
ment believer,  4  need  tret -refrnTKt"ypu,  was  £i 
very  helpless  as  to  a  pessEHErl  God.  Each 
man,  practically,  had  to  make  an  image  of 
God  for  himself.  He  was  given  a  name,  and 
a  set  of  qualities  —  Holiness,  Justice,  Wis- 
dom, and  others,  and  out  of  this  he  had  to 

2 


!  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

0§ 
«A      make  God.     The  consequence  was  that  the 

great    majority   made    it    wrong,    and   wor-" 
shipped   they   knew   not  what.     One   great 
purpose  of  thejncarnation  was  to  change  all 

u^"CV^  "  f\ 

this.  It  j£  to  give  H£  a  new,  defined,  intelli- 
gible Figure  of  God.  "  The  Son  of  God  is 
come,"  said  John, \ who  saw  most  fully  the 
meaning  of  the  Word  made  Flesh ] —  ""The 
Son  of  God  is  come,  and  hath  given  us  an 
understanding  that  we  may  know  Him" 

The  old  Evangelism  had  little  benefit  here 
from  the  incarnation  in  this  respect.  It 
never  got  this  understanding.  God  remained 
unchristianised  in  it.  ]_ The  Figure  came  no 
nearer.  God  remained  Jehovah,  the  I  AM 
that  I  AM.  He  was  not  God  in  Christ, 
God  made  intelligible  by  Christ,  God  made 
lovable  by  Christ,  but  God  Eternal,  Un- 
changeable, Invisible,  therefore  Unknowable; 
and  in  the  nature  of  this  cloud-God,  the  out- 
standing element  was  Vengeance  —  Anger, 
the  ethical  effect  of  which  is  obvious.  A 
man's  whole  religion  depends  on  his  concep- 
tion of  God,  so  much  so  that  to  give  a  man 
religion  in  many  cases  is  simply  to  correct 


THE   NEW   EVANGELISM  19 

his  conception  of  God.  But  if  man's  natural 
conception  of  God,.^which  is  of  a  Being  or  of 
a  Force  opposed  to  him,  a  Being  to  be 
appeased,  Vnot  corrected,  his  religion  will  be 
be  a  religion  of  Fear.  •#  God  therefore  was  "a" 
God  to  be  feared,  an  uncomfortable  presence 
about  one's  life.  He  was  always  in  court, 
either  actually  sitting  in  judgment  or  collect- 
ing material  for  the  next  case.  He  was  the 
haunting  presence  of  a  great  Recorder, 

"  Who  was  writing  now  the  story 
Of  what  little  children  do." 


The  reiteration  that    God  was  Love 

nothing  to  dispel  this  terrible  illusion. 

f  L 

I*         cannot  love  God    because  fte   a-re   told,  for 

Love  is  not  made  to  order.  We  can  believe 
God's  love,  but  believing  love  is  like  looking 
at  heat.  We  cannot  respond  to  it.  To  ex- 
cite love,  we  need  a  person,  not  a  doctrine,  — 
her,  not  a-4eky.  To  be  changed  into 
the  same  image  we  must  look  at  the  glory 
of  God,  not  in  se,  but  in  the  face  of  Jesus. 

GFhe  old  Evangelism  was  defective  in   not 
ixhibiting  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus.     iTex? 


20  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

hibited  God  in  the  nailed  hands  of  Jesus ; 
this  is  an  aspect  of  God,  an  essential  aspect, 
but  not  God.  Next  — 

(2)  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  CHRIST. 

If  the  conception  of  God  was  vague,  the 
conception  of  Christ  was  worse.  He  was  a 
theological  person.  His  function  was  to  ad- 
just matters  between  the  hostile  kingdoms 
of  heaven  and  earth. 

I  do  not  acquit  myself  of  blame  here,  and 
I  hope  no  one  else  has  an  experience  so 
shocking,  but  until  well  on  in  my  college 
course,  and  after  hearing  hundreds  of  ser- 
mons and  addresses  on  the  Person  and  Work 
of  Christ,  the  ruling  idea  left  in  my  mind 
was  that  Christ  was  a  mere  convenience. 
He  was  the  second  person  in  the  Trinity, 
existing  for  the  sake  of  some  logical  or  theo- 
logical necessity,  a  doctrinal  convenience. 
He  was  the  creation  of  theology,  and  His 
function  was  purely  utilitarian.  This  might 
have  been  theological,  but  it  was  not  reli- 
gious. Religion  said,  "  Christ  our  L ife" 
Theology  said,  "  Christ  our  Logic? 

This  is  a  painful  confession,  but  it  is  far 


THE   NEW   EVANGELISM  21 

more  painful  to  think  of  its  basis.  It  is  im- 
possible to  believe  that  in  these  sermons  I 
was  not  presented  with  the  true  aspects  of 
Christ's  life  and  character.  But  it  is  also 
almost  impossible  to  believe  that  these  were 
insisted  on  with  anything  like  the  same  fre- 
quency or  reality  as  the  aspect  I  have  named. 
What  moves  an  attentive  mind  in  a  sermon 
is  its  residual  truth,  not  the  complementary 
passages,  not  the  squarings  with  other  doc- 
trines, but  that  truth  on  which  the  whole 
theme  is  strung,  the  vertebral  column  which, 
though  hid,  is  the  true  pillar  of  the  rest. 
Now  the  residuum  to  me  —  and  it  is  sur- 
prising how  unerringly  this  betrays  itself 
and  stands  nakedly  out  from  all  mere  words 
—  was  always  this.  Whatever  other  points 
were  thrown  in,  whatever  devout  expressions 
were  mixed  with  it,  whatever  appeals  to  the 
affections,  this  was  the  prominent  half- 
truth,  and  therefore  whole  error. 

This  is  the  explanation,  I  think,  of  the 
fact,  now  pretty  well  acknowledged,  that  the 
old  theology  made  almost  nothing  of  the  hu- 
manity of  Christ.  In  such  a  body  of  divinity 


22  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

clearly  there  was  little  room  for  so  mundane 
a  thing  as  humanity.  The  arrangements  in 
which  Christ  played  a  part  were  looked  at 
almost  exclusively  from  the  Divine  and  cos- 
mical  standpoint.  The  question  was,  how 
God  could  forgive  sin,  and  yet  justify  the 
sinner;  how  God  could  do  this  and  that,  as 
if  we  had  anything  to  do  with  it.  Such  a 
divinity  necessarily  wanted  humanity,  the 
humanity  of  man  as  well  as  the  humanity  of 
Christ.  Man  was  a  cypher,  the  mere  theo- 
logical unit,  the  x  of  doctrine  (his  character, 
his  aims,  his  achievements,  his  influence,  were 
neither  here  nor  there)  and  an  unknown 
quantity,  one  of  the  parties  in  the  proposi- 
tion. And  it  was  not  necessary  for  this 
theological  unit  to  have  a  humanitarian 
Christ,  except  as  to  the  mere  identity  of 
flesh,  and  this  was  requisite  only  to  complete 
the  theological  proposition. 

The  emphasis  on  the  humanity  of  Christ, 
which,  happily,  has  now  crept  into  our  best 
teaching,  marks  more  distinctly  perhaps 
than  anything  else  the  dawn  of  the  new 
Evangelism.  Still,  it  must  be  confessed  that 


THE   NEW  EVANGELISM  23 

in  influential  quarters  the  revival  of  this  doc- 
trine is  viewed  even  yet  with  no  inconsider- 
able alarm.  The  newer  Lives  of  Christ,  for 
instance,  in  which  the  humanity  is  conspicu- 
ously developed,  are  constantly  assailed  as 
Unitarian,  and  within  the  last  fortnight  a 
Life  of  Christ  has  been  given  to  the  world, 
from  the  preface  to  which  one  can  almost 
gather  that  the  author's  object  is  to  provide 
an  antidote  to  the  erroneous  tendencies  of 
these  works. 

Men  fail  to  see  that  it  was  God  Himself 
who  conceived  this  wonderful  idea  of  a 
humanitarian  Christ.  When  God  does  any- 
thing, He  never  does  it  by  halves.  When 
He  made  the  word  flesh,  when  He  made 
Jesus  a  Man,  He  made  a  Man,  and  it  is  just 
because  He  carried  out  His  idea  so  perfectly 
that  Unitarianism  is  possible.  When  we  say 
Man,  then  let  us  mean  Man.  It  is  a  mis- 
taken scruple  even  to  minimise  His  Human- 
ity. In  our  zeal  for  the  doctrines  of  the 
Atonement  we  are  really  robbing  God  of 
His  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation. 

(3)    A  third  point  to  notice  is,   The  old 


24  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

Evangelism  in  its  CONCEPTION  OF  SALVATION, 
and  of  religion  generally.  The  characteristic 
to  notice  here  is  that  religion  was  not  so 
much  a  question  of  character  as  of  status. 
Man's  standing  in  the  sight  of  God  was  the 
great  thing.  Was  he  sheltered  judicially 
behind  Christ,  or  was  he  standing  on  his 
own  merits  ?  This  is  a  vital  question  to  ask, 
certainly,  but  the  way  in  which  legal  status 
was  put  sanctioned  the  most  erroneous 
notions  as  to  religion  and  life.  Salvation 
was  a  thing  that  came  into  force  at  death. 
It  was  not  a  thing  for  life.  Good  works,  of 
course,  were  permitted,  and  even  demanded, 
but  they  were  never  very  clearly  reconcilable 
with  grace.  The  prime  end  of  religion  was 
to  get  off ;  the  plan  of  salvation  was  an  elab- 
orate scheme  for  getting  off;  and  after  a 
man  had  faced  that  scheme,  understood  it, 
acquiesced  in  it,  the  one  thing  needful  was 
secured.  Life  after  that  was  simply  a  wait- 
ing until  the  plan  should  be  executed  by  his 
death.  What  use  life  was,  this  one  thing 
being  adjusted,  it  were  hard  to  say.  It  was 
not  in  the  religious  sphere  at  all.  The 


THE   NEW   EVANGELISM  25 

world  was  to  pass  away,  and  the  lust  thereof, 
and  all  time  given  to  it,  all  effort  spent  on  it, 
was  so  much  loss,  like  putting  embroidery 
upon  a  shroud. 

When  a  preacher  did  speak  of  character, 
of  the  imitation  of  Christ,  of  self-denial,  of 
righteousness,  of  truth  and  humility,  the 
references  theologically  were  not  only  not 
clear,  but  were  generally  introduced  with  an 
apology  for  enforcing  them  at  all.  Nine 
times  out  of  ten,  too,  the  preacher  took  them 
all  back  under  the  last  head,  where  he  spoke 
of  man's  inability  and  the  necessity  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  The  ethical  effect  of  even 
weakening  the  absolute  connection  between 
religion  and  morality  is  too  obvious  to  be 
referred  to,  so  I  shall  pass  on. 

Having  now  given  samples  of  the  teaching 
of  the  old  Evangelism,  I  need  not  take  up 
the  time  to  complete  its  circle  of  theology, 
for  the  doctrines  indicated  rule  and  colour 
all  the  rest.  No  doubt  what  has  been  said 
up  till  now  is  more  or  less  commonplace  to 
most  of  you,  and  (with  regard  to  the  more) 
I  now  proceed  to  attempt  something  more 


26  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

constructive,  for  which,  however,  all  that  has 
gone  before  has  been  a  somewhat  necessary 
preparation.  In  what  follows  I  can  only 
hope  to  indicate  what  dimly  seem  to  me  to 
be  the  lines  upon  which  a  new,  intelligent, 
and  living  Evangelism  must  be  built  up. 

II.  What  I  am  most  anxious  to  do  here 
is  to  arrive  at  principles.  I  make  no  attempt 
to  sketch  portions  of  a  detailed  theology, 
such  as  one  might  wish  to  see  taking  the 
place  of  some  of  the  old  doctrines.  That 
will  all  come  in  time;  i.e.,  if  it  ought  to 
come.  It  is  the  principles  which  are  to 
guide  us  in  constructing  the  new  Evangel- 
ism that  are  the  true  difficulty.  We  have 
all  our  own  opinion  as  to  special  points  of 
contrast,  and,  as  we  think,  of  improvement ; 
but  what  outstanding  general  truths  are  to 
regulate  the  movement  as  a  whole?  I  fear 
I  shall  only  have  time  to  refer  to  two. 

(i)  Perhaps  the  most  important  principle, 
in  the  first  place,  is  that  the  new  Evangelism 
must  not  be  doctrinal  By  this  is  not  meant 
that  it  is  to  be  independent  of  doctrine,  but 


THE   NEW   EVANGELISM  27 

simply  that  its  truths  as  conveyed  to  the 
people  are  not  to  be  in  the  prepositional 
form.  With  regard  to  doctrine,  to  avoid 
misconception,  let  me  say  at  once  we  must 
recognise  it  as  one  of  the  three  absolutely 
essential  possessions  of  a  Christian  Church. 

The  three  outstanding  departments  of  the 
Church's  work  are  criticism,  dogmatism,  and 
Evangelism.  Without  the  first  there  is  no 
guarantee  of  truth,  without  the  second  there 
is  no  defence  of  truth,  and  without  the  third 
there  is  no  propagation  of  truth.  Criticism 
then,  in  a  word,  secures  truth,  dogmatism 
conserves  it,  and  evangelism  spreads  it. 
Now,  when  it  is  said  that  preaching  is  not 
to  be  doctrinal,  what  is  meant  is  this. 
When  Evangelism  wishes  to  receive  truth, 
so  as  to  expound  it,  it  is  to  refer  to  criticism 
for  information  rather  than  to  dogmatism. 
And  when  it  gives  out  what  it  has  received, 
it  is  neither  to  be  critical  in  form,  nor 
doctrinal. 

To  deal  with  this  in  detail.  When  Evan- 
gelism  wishes  to  receive  truth  in  order  to 
expound  it,  it  is  to  refer  to  criticism  for  that 


28  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

truth  rather  than  to  dogmatism.  This  sim- 
ply means  that  a  man  is  to  go  to  a  reliable 
edition  of  the  Bible  for  his  truth,  and  not 
to  theology. 

Why  should  he  take  this  trouble  ?  Does 
not  theology  give  him  Bible  truth  in  accu- 
rate, convenient,  and,  moreover,  in  logical 
propositions  ?  There  it  lies  ready  made  to 
his  hand,  all  cut  and  dry ;  why  should  he 
not  use  it  ?  Just  because  it  is  all  cut  and 
dry.  Just  because  it  lies  there  ready  made 
in  accurate,  convenient,  and  logical  proposi- 
tions. You  cannot  cut  and  dry  truth.  You 
cannot  accept  truth  ready  made  without  its 
ceasing  to  live  as  truth.  And  that  is  one 
of  the  reasons  why  the  current  Evangelism 
is  dead. 

There  is  in  reality  no  worse  enemy  under 
certain  circumstances  to  a  true  Evangelism 
than  a  prepositional  theology,  with  the  latter 
controlling  the  former  by  the  authority  of 
the  Church.  For  one  does  not  then  receive 
the  truth  for  himself ;  he  accepts  it  bodily. 
He  begins,  set  up  by  his  Church  with  a 
stock  in  trade  which  has  cost  him  nothing, 


THE  NEW  EVANGELISM  29 

and  which,  though  it  may  serve  him  all  his 
life,  is  just  as  much  worth  exactly  as  his 
belief  in  his  Church.  One  effect  of  this  is 
to  relieve  him  of  all  personal  responsibility. 
This  possession  of  truth,  moreover,  thus 
lightly  won,  is  given  to  him  as  infallible. 
There  is  nothing  to  add  to  it.  It  is  a  sys- 
tem. And  to  start  a  man  in  life  with  such 
a  principle  is  a  degradation.  All  through 
life,  instead  of  working  towards  truth,  he  is 
working  from  it,  or  what  he  is  told  is  it. 

An  infallible  standard  is  a  temptation 
to  a  mechanical  faith.  Infallibility  always 
paralyses.  It  gives  rest,  but  it  is  the  rest 
of  stagnation.  Men  make  one  great  act  of 
faith  at  the  beginning  of  their  lives  —  then 
have  done  with  it  for  ever.  All  moral,  in- 
tellectual, and  spiritual  effort  is  over ;  and 
a  cheap  theology  ends  in  a  cheap  life.  It  is 
the  same  thing  that  makes  men  take  refuge 
in  the  Church  of  Rome  and  in  a  set  of 
dogmas.  Infallibility  meets  the  deepest 
desire  of  man,  but  meets  it  in  the  most 
fatal  form.  All  desire  is  given  to  stimulate 
to  action ;  much  more  this,  the  deepest,  — 


30  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

the  hunger  after  truth.  Men  deal  with  this 
desire  in  two  ways.  First,  by  Unbelief,  — 
that  crushes  it  by  blind  force ;  second,  by 
Infallibility — that  lulls  it  to  sleep  by  blind 
faith.  The  effect  of  a  doctrinal  theology 
is  the  effect  of  infallibility.  The  wholesale 
belief  in  a  system,  however  grand  it  may  be, 
grant  even  that  it  were  infallible  —  the 
wholesale  belief  in  this  system  as  the  start- 
ing point  for  a  working  Evangelism  is  not 
Faith,  though  it  always  gets  that  name.  It 
is  mere  credulity.  There  is  a  vital  differ- 
ence between  Faith  and  credulity.  Realise 
what  it  fully  amounts  to,  and  you  will  see 
how  much,  besides  this,  there  is  in  the  reli- 
gion of  this  country  which  falls  before  the 
distinction.  There  is  no  real  religious  value 
in  this  belief;  for  it  is  more  belief  in  a 
Church  than  in  truth.  It  is  a  comfortable, 
credulous  rest  upon  authority,  not  a  hard- 
earned,  self-obtained  personal  possession. 
JTruth  never  becomes  truth  until  it  is  earned. 
The  moral  responsibility  here,  besides,  is 
nothing.  The  Westminster  Divines  are 
responsible,  not  I.  And  anything  which 


THE   NEW  EVANGELISM  31 

destroys  responsibility,  or  transfers  it,  can- 
not but  be  injurious  in  its  moral  tendency, 
and  useless  in  itself. 

It  may  be  objected,  perhaps,  that  this 
statement  of  the  paralysis,  spiritual  and 
mental,  induced  by  infallibility  applies  also 
to  the  Bible.  The  answer  is  that  though 
the  Bible  is  infallible,  the  infallibility  is  not 
in  such  a  form  as  to  become  a  temptation. 
And  that  leads  to  a  remark  as  to  the  contrast 
between  the  form  of  truth  in  the  Bible  and 
the  form  in  theology.  In  theology,  as  we 
have  seen,  truth  is  propositional,  tied  up  in 
neat  parcels,  systematised  and  arranged  in 
logical  order.  In  the  Bible,  truth  is  a  foun- 
tain. There  is  an  atmosphere  here,  an 
expansiveness,  an  infinity.  Theology  is 
essentially  finite,  and  it  only  contains  as 
much  infinite  truth  as  can  be  chained  down 
by  its  finite  words.  The  very  point  of  it  is. 
that  it  is  defined,  otherwise  it  is  no  use. 

To  the  practical  question.  There  are  few 
minds  which  can  really  take  truth  in  this 
theological  form.  Truth  is  a  thing  to  be 
slowly  absorbed,  not  to  be  bolted  whole.  In 


32  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

this  country  we  have  been  so  accustomed  to 
get  and  give  our  truth  in  the  prepositional 
form,  that  many  congregations  do  not  recog- 
nise it  if  stated  in  the  ordinary  language  of 
life.  But  this  is  the  only  living  language. 
And  the  failure  to  catch  sight  of  the  truth 
when  clothed  in  this  language  means  that  it 
has  not  been  comprehended  before  as  a  sub- 
stance, but  as  a  form. 

"  Two  or  three  days  ago,  I  dined,"  says 
Lynch  in  "  Letters  to  the  Scattered,"  "  with 
a  little  child  whose  mamma  had  prepared  for 
him  a  very  wholesome  and  delightful  pudding. 
'  What  is  in  it  ? '  said  the  child.  '  There  's 
an  egg  in  it,'  said  the  mother.  'Where's  the 
egg  ? '  asked  the  child,  after  close  and  incred- 
ulous inspection.  '  It  is  mixed  with  it,'  she 
explained. 

"  There  are  many  grown  men  and  women," 
adds  Lynch,  "that  unless  they  see  the  very 
form  of  a  doctrine  will  not  believe  they 
can  have  the  nutriment  of  it.  They  ask, 
*  Where  's  the  egg  ? '  and  if  you  say  it  is 
mixed  with  it  —  the  doctrine  of  Atonement, 
or  of  Justification,  or  Sanctification  —  and 


THE   NEW   EVANGELISM  33 

was  diffused  through  the  whole  of  what  was 
said,  they  shake  their  heads  suspiciously. 
They  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  such 
preaching,  or  such  books,  or  such  people." 

There  is  nothing  truer,  certainly,  than  that 
in  this  country  people  at  once  suspect  adul- 
teration if  you  do  not  present  them  with  the 
actual  egg,  shell  and  all.  But  what  I  am  try- 
ing to  show  is  that  this  demand  is  a  mistake, 
and  defeats  its  own  end.  The  truth  is  Na- 
ture never  provides  for  man's  wants  in  any 
direction,  bodily,  mental,  or  spiritual,  in  such 
a  form  as  that  he  can  simply  accept  her  gifts 
automatically.  She  puts  all  the  mechanical : 
powers  at  his  disposal,  but  he  must  make  his 
lever.  She  gives  him  corn,  but  he  must 
grind  it.  She  prepares  coal,  but  he  must  dig 
it;  and  even  when  she  grows  him  apples  and}: 

plums,  ready-made  fruits,  he  has  at  least  to 
1 

digest  them,  and  in  most  cases  he  had  better  \tl 
cook  them.  A  law  of  nature  like  this,  we 
are  justified  in  carrying  by  analogy  into  the 
region  of  the  spiritual.  A  man  can  no  more 
assimilate  truth  in  infallible  lumps  than  he 
can  corn.  Though  it  be  perfect,  infallible, 

3 


34  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

!  yet  he  has  to  do  everything  to  it  before  he 
can  use  it.  Corn  is  perfect,  all  the  products 
of  Nature  are  perfect,  and  perfection  in  Na- 
ture corresponds  to  infallibility  in  truth.  But 
perfect  though  they  are,  few  of  the  products 
of  Nature  are  available  as  they  stand.  So 
with  Truth.  Man  must  separate,  think,  pre- 
pare, dissolve,  digest,  work,  and  most  of  these 
he  must  do  for  himself  and  within  himself. 
If  it  be  replied  that  this  is  exactly  what  the- 
ology does,  I  answer,  it  is  exactly  what  it 
does  not.  It  simply  does  what  the  green- 
grocer does  when  he  arranges  his  apples  and 
plums  in  the  shop-windows.  He  may  tell 
me  a  Magnum  Bonum  from  a  Victoria,  or  a 
Baldwin  from  a  Nevvtown  Pippin ;  but  he 
does  not  help  me  to  eat  it.  His  information 
is  useful,  and  for  scientific  horticulture  ab- 
solutely essential.  Should  a  sceptical  po- 
inologist  deny  that  there  was  such  a  thing 
as  a  Baldwin  or  mistake  it  for  a  Newtown 
Pippin,  we  should  be  glad  to  refer  the 
said  pomologist  to  him.  But  if  we  were 
hungry,  and  an  orchard  were  handy,  we 
should  not  trouble  him.  This  brings  us 


THE   NEW   EVANGELISM  35 

back  to  the  original  proposition  then,  that 
the  new  Evangelism  as  a  provision  for  the 
hunger  of  men's  souls  is  not  to  be  doctrinal. 
Their  truth  is  to  be  given  them,  not  in  infal- 
lible lumps,  but  as  a  diffused  nutriment. 
Truth  is  an  orchard  rather  than  a  museum. 
Dogmatism  will  be  very  useful  to  us  when 
scientific  necessity  makes  us  go  to  the  mu- 
seum. Criticism  will  be  very  useful  in  seeing 
that  only  fruit-bearers  grow  in  the  orchard  and 
neither  weeds  nor  poisonous  sports.  But 
truth  in  infallible  propositional  lumps  is  not 
natural,  proper,  assimilable  food  for  the  soul 
of  man ;  and  therefore  a  propositional  theol- 
ogy is  not  the  subject-matter  of  Evangelism. 
(2)  So  much  for  exposition  of  the  nature 
of  the  truth  with  which  Evangelism  is  con- 
cerned. The  second  principle  to  which  we 
now  turn  refers  to  a  matter  of  equal  mo- 
ment—  the  faculty  which  deals  with  truth. 
And  I  might  sum  up  what  is  to  be  said 
under  this  head  in  this  proposition  —  The 
leading  Faculty  of  the  new  theology  is  not 
to  be  the  Reason.  The  previous  proposition 
deals  with  the  form  of  truth.  This  is  meant 


36  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

to  elucidate  the  principle  of  arriving  at 
truth.  It  is  a  deeper  question,  and  strikes 
at  a  fundamental  difference  between  the 
old  and  the  new  theology. 

The  old  theology  was  largely  a  product  of 
reason.  It  was  an  elaborate,  logical  con- 
struction. The  complaint  against  it  is  that, 
as  a  logical  construction,  it  was  arrived  at 
by  a  faculty  of  the  mind,  and  not  by  a 
faculty  of  the  soul.  On  close  scrutiny  it 
turns  out  to  be  really  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  rationalism. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  for  in- 
stance, and  the  whole  federal  theology  is  an 
elaborate  rationalism.  The  common  way  of 
presenting  salvation  is  the  most  naked  syllo- 
gism :  "  I  believe.  He  that  believeth  hath 
everlasting  life,  therefore  I  have  everlast- 
ing life."  I  do  not  pause  to  point  out 
that  a  theology  of  this  sort  may  be  re- 
ceived by  any  one  without  any  spiritual 
effect  whatsoever  being  produced.  It  does 
not  take  a  religious  man  to  be  a  theologian ; 
it  simply  takes  a  man  with  fair  reasoning 
powers.  This  man  happens  to  apply  these 


THE   NEW   EVANGELISM  37 

powers  to  doctrinal  subjects,  but  in  no 
other  sense  than  he  might  apply  them  to 
astronomy  or  physics.  I  knew  a  man,  the 
author  of  a  well-known  orthodox  theological 
work  which  has  passed  through  a  dozen 
editions,  and  lies  on  the  shelves  of  all  our 
libraries.  I  never  knew  that  man  to  go  to 
church,  nor  to  give  a  farthing  in  charity, 
though  he  was  a  rich  man,  nor  to  give  any 
sensible  sign  whatever  that  he  had  ever 
heard  of  Christianity.  It  is  equally  unnec- 
essary to  point  out  that  if  reason  is  the 
exclusive  or  primary  faculty  in  theology, 
theology  itself  breaks  down  under  rigid 
tests  at  almost  every  point.  Its  first  prin- 
ciple, for  example,  that  God  is,  contains  a 
distinct  contradiction,  as  has  been  repeatedly 
pointed  out.  Many  philosophers,  therefore, 
in  being  presented  with  theology  as  the 
expression  of  the  Christian  religion,  have 
had  no  alternative  but  to  become  atheists. 
The  reasoning  faculty  then  cannot  be  the 
organ  of  the  new  Evangelism,  for  its  conclu- 
sions are  philosophically  assailable.  But  I 
am  not  dealing  here  with  philosophy,  and  it 


38  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

is  not  to  be  understood  that  I  am  using  terms 
—  Reason,  for  instance  —  in  any  particular 
philosophical  sense.  I  am  looking  at  the  ques- 
tion exclusively  from  its  practical  side.  And 
the  question  I  ask  myself  is, "  When  I  appre- 
hend spiritual  truth,  what  faculty  do  I  em- 
ploy ? "  When  I  say  it  is  not  the  reason,  I  do 
not  purposely  make  the  distinction  between 
the  Understanding  and  the  Reason,  which 
Kant  and  his  followers,  for  example,  do  in 
philosophy,  and  Coleridge  in  religion,  making 
the  Understanding  the  logical  faculty  and 
the  Reason  the  intuitive  faculty.  I  use  the 
word  in  its  ordinary  working  sense,  mean- 
ing by  it,  if  you  like,  the  logical  understand- 
ing of  the  writer's  mind. 

What  faculty  do  I  employ,  then,  in  ap- 
prehending spiritual  truth?  WThat  is  the 
primary  faculty  of  the  new  Evangelism  if  it 
is  not  the  Reason?  Leaving  philosophical 
distinctions  aside  again,  I  think  it  is  the 

IMAGINATION.     Overlook  the  awkwardness  of 

_ 

this  mere  word,  and  ask  yourself  if  this  is 
not  the  organ  of  your  mind  which  gives  you 
a  vision  of  truth.  The  subject-matter  of  the 


THE  NEW   EVANGELISM  39 

new  Evangelism  must  be  largely  the  words 
of  Christ,  the  circle  of  ideas  of  Christ  in 
their  harmony,  and  especially  in  their  per- 
spective. Sit  down  for  a  moment  and  hear 
Him  speak.  Take  almost  any  of  His  words. 
To  what  faculty  do  they  appeal  ?  Almost 
without  exception  to  the  Imagination.  And 
this  is  the  main  thing  I  wish  to  say  to-night. 
I  do  not  merely  refer  to  His  parables,  to  His 
allusions  to  nature,  to  the  miracles,  to  His 
endless  symbolism  —  the  comparisons  be- 
tween Himself  and  bread,  water,  vine,  wine, 
shepherd,  doctor,  light,  life,  and  a  score  of 
others.  But  all  His  most  important  sayings 
are  put  up  in  such  form  as  to  make  it  per- 
fectly clear  that  they  were  deliberately  de- 
signed for  the  Imagination. 

You  cannot  indeed  really  put  up  religious 
truth  in  any  other  form.  You  can  put  up 
facts,  information,  but  God's  truth  will  not 
go  into  a  word.  You  must  put  it  in  an 
image.  God  Himself  could  not  put  truth  in 
a  word,  therefore  He  made  the  Word  flesh. 
There  are  few  things  less  comprehended 
than  this  relation  of  truth  to  language. 


40          THE  NEW  EVANGELISM 

"  Was  stets  und  aller  Orten 
Sich  ewig  Jung  erweist 
1st  in  gebundnen  Worten 
Ein  ungebundner  Geist." 

The  purpose  of  revelation  is  to  exhibit  the 
mind  of  God  — the  ungebundner  Geist.  The 
vehicle  is  words,  gebundnen  Worten.  What 
words  ?  Words  which  are  windows  and  not 
prisons.  Words  of  the  intellect  cannot  hold 
God  —  the  finite  cannot  hold  the  infinite. 
But  an  image  can.  So  God  has  made  it 
possible  for  us  by  giving  us  an  external  world 
to  make  image-words.  The  external  world  is 
not  a  place  to  work  in,  or  to  feed  in,  but  to 
see  in.  It  is  a  world  of  images,  the  external 
everywhere  revealing  the  eternal.  The  key 
to  the  external  world  is  to  look  not  at  the 
things  which  are  seen,  but  in  looking  at  the 
things  which  are  seen  to  see  through  them 
to  the  things  that  are  unseen.  Look  at  the 
ocean.  It  is  mere  water — a  thing  which  is 
seen ;  but  look  again,  look  through  that 
which  is  seen,  and  you  see  the  limitlessness 
of  Eternity.  Look  at  a  river,  another  of 
God's  images  of  the  unseen.  It  is  also  water, 


THE   NEW    EVANGELISM  41 

but  God  has  given  it  another  form  to  image 
a  different  truth.  There  is  Time,  swift  and 
silent.  There  is  Life,  irrevocable,  passing. 
But  the  most  singular  truth  of  this,  as  sug- 
gested a  moment  ago,  is  the  Incarnation. 
There  was  no  word  in  the  world's  vocabulary 
for  Himself.  In  Nature  we  had  images  of 
Time  and  Eternity.  The  seasons  spoke  of 
Change,  the  mountains  of  Stability.  The 
home-life  imaged  Love.  Law  and  Justice 
were  in  the  civil  system.  The  snow  was 
Purity,  the  rain,  Fertility.  By  using  these 
metaphors  we  could  realise  feebly  Time  and 
Eternity,  Stability  and  Change.  But  there 
was  no  image  of  Himself.  So  God  made 
one.  He  gave  a  word  in  Flesh  —  a  word  in 
the  Image-form.  He  gave  the  Man  Christ 
Jesus  the  express  image  of  His  person.  This 
was  the  one  image  that  was  wanting  in  the 
image-vocabulary  of  truth,  and  the  Incarna- 
tion supplied  it. 

God  had  really  supplied  this  image  before, 
but  man  had  spoilt  it,  disfigured  it  to  such 
an  extent  that  it  was  unrecognisable.  God 
made  man  in  His  own  image  ;  that  was  a 


42  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

word  made  flesh.  From  its  ruins  man  might 
have  reconstructed  an  image  of  God,  but  the 
audacity  of  the  attempt  repelled  him,  and  for 
centuries  men  had  forgotten  that  the  image 
of  God  was  in  themselves. 

How,  then,  do  you  characterise  that  irrev- 
erent elaboration  of  theology  which  attempts 
to  show  you  in  words  what  God  has  had  to 
do  in  the  slow  unfolding  of  Himself  in  his- 
tory, and  by  that  final  resort,  when  words 
were  useless,  of  incarnating  the  Word,  giving 
us  the  manifestation  of  a  living  God  in  a  liv- 
ing Word.  These  doctrines  stand  apart. 
They  are  above  words.  It  is  a  mockery  for 
the  Reason  to  define  and  formulate  here,  as 
if  by  heaping  up  words  she  could  drive  the 
truth  into  a  corner  and  dispense  it  in  phrases 
as  required.  It  is  just  as  clear,  as  a  simple 
question  of  rhetoric,  that  Christ's  words  were 
positively  protected  against  the  mere  touch 
of  reason.  They  were  put  up  in  such  form 
in  many  cases  as  to  challenge  reason  to  make 
beginning,  middle,  or  end  of  them.  Try  to 
reason  out  a  parable.  Try  to  read  into  it  the- 
ology, as  our  forefathers  often  did  ;  ordispen- 


THE   NEW  EVANGELISM  43 

sational  truth,  as  certain  erratic  theologians 
do  to-day,  and  it  becomes  either  utterly  con- 
temptible or  utterly  unintelligible. 

You  see  a  parable,  you  discern  it ;  it  enters 
your  mind  as  an  image,  you  image  it,  imag- 
ine it.  I  am  the  Bread  of  Life.  With  what 
faculty  do  we  apprehend  that  ?  We  look  at 
it  long  and  earnestly,  and  at  first  are  utterly 
baffled  by  it.  But  as  we  look  it  grows  more 
and  more  transparent,  and  we  see  through  it. 
Wre  do  not  understand  it ;  if  we  were  asked 
what  we  saw,  we  should  be  surprised  at  the 
difficulty  we  had  in  defining  it.  Some  image 
rose  out  of  the  word  Bread,  became  slowly 
living,  sank  into  our  soul,  and  vanished. 
The  peculiarity  of  this  expression  is  that  it 
is  not  a  simile.  "  I  am  like  bread."  Christ 
does  not  say  that.  I  am  bread  —  the  thing 
itself.  And  that  faculty,  standing  face  to 
face  with  truth,  draws  aside  the  veil,  or 
pierces  it,  seizes  the  living  substance,  absorbs 
it ;  and  the  soul  is  nourished. 

Besides  the  parable,  the  metaphor,  and  the 
metaphor  which  is  no  metaphor,  Christ  has 
two  other  favourite  modes  of  expression. 


44  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

These  are  the  axiom  and  the  paradox.  The 
axiom  is  the  basis  of  certainty ;  the  reason 
is  inoperative  without  it,  but  it  is  not  appre- 
hended by  reason.  It  is  seen,  not  proved. 
Again,  therefore,  we  are  dealing  with  the 
Imagination.  The  paradox  is  the  darkest  of 
all  figures.  "  He  that  loveth  his  life  shall 
lose  it,  and  he  that  hateth  his  life  shall  find 
it."  What  can  reason  make  of  that  ?  It  is 
an  utter  blank;  it  absolutely  repels  reason. 
But  for  that  very  cause  it  is  the  richest  mine 
for  the  imagination.  It  is  not  the  darkest 
figure,  but  the  lightest,  because  the  rays 
come  from  exactly  opposite  sides,  and  meet 
as  truth  in  the  middle.  The  shell  of  words, 
once  burst,  reveals  a  whole  world,  in  which 
the  illuminated  mind  runs  riot,  and  revels  in 
the  boundlessness  of  truth. 

Had  the  reason  been  able  to  sink  its  shaft, 
it  might  have  brought  up  a  nugget.  Theol- 
ogy would  have  gained  another  proposition, 
another  neat  parcel,  and  there  would  have 
been  the  end  of  it.  As  it  is,  it  is  without 
end,  limitless,  infinite  truth,  incapable  in  that 
form  of  becoming  uninteresting,  unreal,  in- 


THE   NEW   EVANGELISM  45 

eluded  in  a  human  phrase.  It  is  this  sense 
of  depth  about  Christ's  words  which  is  the 
sure  test  of  their  truth.  They  shade  off, 
every  one,  into  the  unknown,  and  the  roots 
of  the  known  are  always  in  the  unknown. 
Omnia  exeunt  in  mysterium.  Dogma  is 
simply  an  attempt  to  undo  this.  It  takes  up 
the  sublimest  truth  in  its  fingers  with  no 
more  awe  than  an  anatomist  lifts  a  muscle 
with  his  forceps,  turns  it  about,  dissects  it, 
determines  the  genus  and  species  of  the 
organism  to  which  it  belongs,  and  marks  it 
down  "  described  "  for  all  future  time.  We 
know  all  about  it  —  all  about  it.  We  see  the 
whole  thing  quite  clearly ;  it  is  as  simple  as 
the  frog's  muscle.  The  new  Evangelism  can 
never  deal  with  truth  in  this  way.  It  will 
never  say  that  it  sees  quite  clearly.  It  may 
remain  ignorant,  but  it  will  never  presume 
to  say  there  is  no  darkness,  no  mystery,  no 
unknown.  It  will  sound  truth,  it  will  go 
fathoms  further  perhaps  than  the  reason  can 
go,  but  it  will  come  back  saying  we  have 
found  no  bottom.  It  is  not  all  as  clear  as 
the  old  theology;  it  has  that  dimness  of  an 


46  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

older  theology  which  sees  through  a  glass 
darkly,  which  knows  in  part,  and  which, 
because  it  knows  in  part,  knows  the  more 
certainly  that  it  shall  know  hereafter. 

The  want  of  apprehension  of  the  quality 
of  truth  by  much  of  the  prepositional  theol- 
ogy is  in  nothing  better  evidenced  than  by 
this  mistake  as  to  its  quantity.  It  robbed  it 
at  once  of  the  infinite  and  the  supernatural. 
The  soul-food  was  taken  out  of  the  truth, 
and  the  husks  thrown  to  the  intellect.  As 
a  faculty,  then,  the  reason  is  not  large  enough 
to  be  the  organ  of  Christianity.  It  has  a 
very  high  and  prominent  place  to  play  in 
Christianity,  but  prima  facie  it  lacks  the  first 
and  the  second  qualities  of  a  religious  faculty. 
The  first  of  these  qualities  is  that  just  men- 
tioned, largeness  and  penetration.  The 
second  is  universality.  All  men  cannot  rea- 
son, but  all  men  can  see.  In  the  rudest  savage 
and  in  the  youngest  child,  the  imagination  is 
strong.  And  Christ  addressed  His  religion 
to  the  most  unlettered,  to  the  youngest  child. 
He  boldly  asserted  that  His  religion  was  for 
the  youngest  child.  He  directly  appealed 


THE   NEW   EVANGELISM  47 

again  and  again  to  the  child-spirit.  "  Except 
ye  become  as  a  little  child,  ye  shall  in  no 
wise  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  To 
object  to  this  that  Christ  was  speaking  to  the 
Oriental  mind  is  of  course  beside  the  mark. 
Christ  was  not  an  Oriental  speaking  to  the 
Oriental,  He  was  the  Son  of  Man  speaking 
to  man  in  the  universal  language  of  truth.  I 
have  already  apologised  for  using  this  word 
Imagination,  but  I  think  I  have  made  clear 
the  idea.  I  am  not  concerned  longer,  there- 
fore, about  retaining  it.  I  am  not  sure  that 
it  is  the  right  word.  You  might  perhaps 
prefer  to  call  it  faith  or  intuition,  or  the  spirit 
of  discernment,  or  a  subjective  idealism,  but 
the  name  is  of  no  moment.  The  idea  I  have 
tried  to  make  clear  is  that  this  is  the  faculty 
which  works  with  the  eyes,  as  contrasted 
with  reason,  which  works  with  the  hands. 
The  old  theology  manipulates  truth,  the  new 
is  to  discern  it.  As  preachers  our  aim  must 
be,  not  to  prove  things,  but  to  make  men  see 
things. 

This  conclusion  with  regard  to  the  faculty 
of  the  new  Evangelism  is  derived   simply 


48  THE  NEW  EVANGELISM 

from  observation.  It  contains  the  crucial 
point  of  the  whole  question,  and  I  have 
little  more  to  say  except  in  support  of  it. 
But  I  need  scarcely  remind  those  of  you 
who  are  in  any  way  conversant  with  Ger- 
man philosophy  that  distinctions  closely  cor- 
responding to  this  have  been  drawn  in 
philosophy,  and  long  indeed  before  the 
German  philosophers  arose.  The  later  form 
of  this  philosophy  filtered  into  English  liter- 
ature early  in  this  century,  and  at  once 
awakened  profound  interest,  and,  it  is  fair 
to  say,  alarm.  Through  such  men  as  Cole- 
ridge and  the  Hares  it  was  easily  traced  to 
its  source  in  Schelling  and  Kant.  But  that 
Schelling  and  Kant,  Fichte  and  Hegel  had 
differentiated  this  faculty,  or  something  like 
this  faculty  in  the  philosophical  sphere,  was 
against  it.  The  new  influence  for  the  time 
was  quenched.  The  unfortunate  thing  with 
the  English  neo-Platonists  was  that  they 
paid  too  little  attention  to  the  practical  as- 
pects of  truth.  Had  Coleridge  done  this, 
had  Maurice  and  Hare  done  this  more,  we 
should  have  been  farther  on  to-day  with  the 


THE   NEW  EVANGELISM  49 

new  Evangelism.  These  men,  and  espe- 
cially Coleridge,  were  far  too  transcendental 
in  their  metaphysics  to  be  the  prophets  of 
the  new  Evangelism,  but  with  many  other 
errors  they  held  the  germ  of  a  very  great 
truth.  With  Coleridge  the  imagination  was 

o  o 

a  synthesis  of  the  reasoning  power  and  the 
sensing  power.  His  definition  is  "that 
reconciling  and  mediatory  power,  which, 
incorporating  the  reason  in  images  of  sense, 
and  organising  (as  it  were)  the  flux  of  the 
senses,  by  the  permanent  and  self-circling 
energies  of  the  reason,  gives  birth  to  a  sys- 
tem of  symbols  harmonious  in  themselves, 
and  consubstantial  with  the  truths  of  which 
they  are  the  conductors."  1  Again  he  says 2 
"  the  grounds  of  the  real  truth,  the  life,  the 
substance,  the  hope,  the  love,  in  one  word 
the  faith,  these  are  derivatives  from  the 
practical,  moral,  and  spiritual  nature  and 
being  of  man." 

I  do  not  stop  to  inquire  here  as  to  where 

1  "  Statesman's  Manual,'1   p.    229,  vide  Rigg,  "  Modern 
Anglican  Theology,"  p.  15. 
2 "Aids,"  p.  141. 


50  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

Coleridge's  version  of  "  the  Light  which 
lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world  "  leads.  The  new  Evangelism  doubt- 
less will  have  its  apologetics  when  it  exists. 
Nor  do  I  enter  upon  the  question  as  to  how 
far  this  light  exists  in  every  man,  or  how 
far  it  is  true  that  those  only  who  are  born 
again  can  see  the  kingdom  of  God.  These 
are  particular  applications  which  may  just 
now  be  passed  over.  But  I  should  like  to 
go  on  with  the  general  subject  by  adding 
another  quotation,  this  time  from  science, 
bearing  upon  the  general  subject. 

In  1870  Professor  Tyndall  wrote  an  address 
entitled,  "  On  the  Scientific  Use  of  the  Im- 
agination." The  motto  or  text  of  this  ad- 
dress is  taken  from  a  paper  read  before  the 
Royal  Society  some  years  ago  by  its  then 
president,  Sir  Benjamin  Brodie.  It  says : 
"  Physical  investigation,  more  than  anything 
besides,  helps  to  teach  us  the  actual  value 
and  ri^ht  use  of  the  imagination  —  that 

<D  O 

wondrous  faculty  which  .  .  properly  con- 
trolled by  experience  and  reflection  becomes 
the  noblest  attribute  of  man ;  the  source  of 


THE   NEW   EVANGELISM  51 

poetic  genius,  the  instrument  of  discovery 
to  science,  without  the  aid  of  which  Newton 
would  never  have  invented  fluxions,  nor 
Davy  have  decomposed  the  earths  and  al- 
kalies, nor  would  Columbus  have  found 
another  continent."  Then  Tyndall  goes 
on  to  say :  "  We  find  ourselves  gifted  with 
the  power  of  forming  mental  images  of  the 
ultra-sensible  ;  and  by  this  power,  when  duly 
chastened  and  controlled,  we  can  lighten  the 
darkness  which  surrounds  the  world  of  the 
senses.  There  are  Tories  even  in  Science 
who  regard  Imagination  as  a  faculty  to  be 
feared  and  avoided  rather  than  employed." 
But  "  Imagination  becomes  the  prime  mover 
of  the  physical  discoverer.  Newton's  pas- 
sage from  a  falling  apple  to  a  falling  moon 
was  at  the  outset  a  leap  of  the  Imagination. 
In  Faraday  the  exercise  of  this  faculty  pre- 
ceded all  his  experiments.  ...  In  fact, 
without  this  power  our  knowledge  of  Nature 
would  be  a  mere  tabulation  of  co-existences 
and  sequences."  If  Tyndall  claims  so  much 
for  the  scientific  use  of  the  Imagination, 
what  may  we  not  claim  for  the  religious  use 


52  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

of  it?  What  is  not  possible  to  an  Imagina- 
tion guided  by  reason  and  illuminated,  as 
we  hold  it  may  be,  and  is,  by  the  Spirit  of 
God  ?  "  Without  this  power,"  we  might 
almost  paraphrase  from  Tyndall,  "  our  know- 
ledge of  religion  must  be,  or  is,  a  mere 
tabulation  of  co-existences  and  sequences." 
There  is  one  preacher  to  whom,  from  his 
printed  sermons,  I  have  many  times  been 
much  beholden  and  from  whom  I  also  quote 
a  sentence.  I  do  not  stay  to  characterise 
the  sermons  of  Horace  Bushnell,  but  he  has 
long  been  to  me  a  representative  man  of  the 
new  Evangelism,  although  I  knew  nothing 
of  him,  of  his  life,  of  his  methods  of  thought 
or  work.  But  the  other  day  he  died,  and 
his  life  was  written.  There  I  have  found, 
to  my  great  amazement,  that  Bushnell's 
method  of  looking  at  truth  is  defined  by 
himself  as  an  exercise  of  the  Imagination. 
He  has  actually  published  an  article,  which 
appears  in  America  bearing  this  title,  "  The 
Gospel  a  Gift  to  the  Imagination."  Permit 
me  to  quote  a  sentence  or  two  from  the 
biography.  Bushnell  is  speaking  in  propria 


THE   NEW  EVANGELISM  53 

persona.  "  The  Christian  Gospel  is  picto- 
rial. Its  every  line  or  lineament  is  traced 
in  some  image  or  metaphor,  and  no  inge- 
nuity can  get  it  away  from  metaphor.  No 
animal  ever  understood  a  metaphor.  That 
belongs  to  man.  .  .  .  All  the  truths  of  re- 
ligion are  given  by  images,  all  God's  reve- 
lation is  made  to  the  imagination,  and 
all  the  rites,  and  services,  and  ceremonies 
of  the  olden  times  were  only  a  prepara- 
tion of  draperies  and  figures  for  what  was 
to  come,  the  basis  of  words  sometime 
to  be  used  as  metaphors  of  the  Christian 
grace.  'Christ  is  God's  last  metaphor! '  the 
express  image  of  God's  person  !  and  when 
we  have  gotten  all  the  metaphoric  mean- 
ings of  His  life  and  death,  all  that  is  ex- 
pressed and  bodied  in  His  person  of  God's 
saving  help,  and  new-creating,  sin-forgiving, 
reconciling  love,  the  sooner  we  dismiss  all 
speculations  on  the  literalities  of  His  incar- 
nate miracles,  His  derivation,  the  composi- 
tion of  His  person,  His  suffering,  plainly 
transcendent  as  regards  our  possible  under- 
standing —  the  wiser  we  shall  be  in  our 


54  THE   NEW   EVANGELISM 

discipleship.  ...  If  we  try  to  make  a  sci- 
ence out  of  the  altar  metaphors,  it  will  be 
no  gospel  that  we  make,  but  a  poor  dry  jar- 
gon —  (rather)  a  righteousness  that  makes 
nobody  righteous,  a  justice  satisfied  by  in- 
justice, a  mercy  on  the  basis  of  pay,  a  penal 
deliverance  that  keeps  on  foot  all  the  penal 
liabilities."  One  passage  more.  "  There  is 
no  book  in  the  world  that  contains  so  many 
repugnances  or  antagonistic  forms  of  asser- 
tion as  the  Bible.  Therefore,  if  any  man 
please  to  play  off  his  constructive  logic  upon 
it,  he  can  easily  show  it  up  as  the  absurdest 
book  in  the  world.  But  whosoever  wants, 
on  the  other  hand,  really  to  behold,  and  re- 
ceive all  truth,  and  would  have  the  truth- 
world  overhang  him  as  an  empyrean  of  stars, 
complex,  multitudinous,  striving  antagonisti- 
cally, yet  comprehended,  height  above  height, 
and  deep  under  deep  in  a  boundless  score  of 
harmony  —  what  man  soever  content  with 
no  small  rote  of  logic  and  catechism,  reaches 
with  true  hunger  after  this,  and  will  offer 
himself  to  the  many-sided  forms  of  the 
Scripture  with  a  perfectly  ingenuous  and 


THE   NEW   EVANGELISM  55 

receptive  spirit,  he  shall  find  his  nature 
flooded  with  senses,  vastnesses  and  powers 
of  truth  such  as  it  is  even  greatness  to  feel." 
Gentlemen,  after  the  old  Evangelism,  this 
is  a  new  world  to  live  in.  There  is  air  here. 
Take  the  Gospel  as  a  gift  to  the  Imagina- 
tion, and  you  are  entered  into  a  large  place. 
It  is  like  a  conversion.  We  read  the  Bible 
before  with  a  key.  A  lamp  was  put  in  our 
hands  with  which  to  search  for  truth  — 
rather  to  search  for  Scripture  proofs  of  a 
truth  thrust  down  our  throats.  We  were 
not  told  the  Bible  was  the  lamp.  I  once 
saw  an  hotel-keeper  on  a  starlit  night  in  au- 
tumn erect  an  electric  light  to  show  his 
guests  Niagara.  It  never  occurred  to  the 
creature  that  God's  dim,  mystic  starlight 
was  ten  million  times  more  brilliant  to  man's 
soul  than  ten  million  carbons.  When  will 
it  occur  to  us  that  God's  truth  is  Light — 
self-luminous;  to  be  seen  because  self-lumi- 
nous ?  When  shall  we  understand  that  it 
has  no  speech  nor  language,  that  men  are  to 
come  to  the  naked  truth  with  their  naked 
eyes,  bringing  no  candle?  The  old  theol- 


$6          THE  NEW  EVANGELISM 

ogy  was  luminous  once.  But  it  is  not 
now.  "  Election,"  says  Froude  in  "  Bunyan," 
"  Election,  conversion,  day  of  grace,  coming 
to  Christ,  have  been  pawed  and  fingered 
by  unctuous  hands  for  near  two  hundred 
years.  The  bloom  is  gone  from  the  flower. 
The  plumage,  once  shining  with  hues  direct 
from  Heaven,  is  soiled  and  bedraggled.  The 
most  solemn  of  all  realities  have  been  de- 
graded into  the  passwords  of  technical  the- 
ology." It  is  from  this  that  we  are  to 
emancipate  ourselves,  and,  God  helping  us, 
others.  We  have  a  Gospel  in  the  new 
Evangelism  which  for  a  hundred  years  the 
world  has  been  waiting  for.  We  have  a 
Gospel  which  those  who  even  faintly  see  it 
thank  God  that  they  live,  and  live  to  preach 
it.  But  I  am  not  quite  done  yet.  What 
will  be,  what  are,  the  main  hindrances  to  the 
acceptance  of  the  new  Evangelism?  They 
are  mainly  two. 

(i)    Unspirituality  and  (2)  Laziness. 

(i)  All  formal  religions  are  efforts  to 
escape  spirituality.  It  matters  not  what  the 
form  is  —  ritual,  idols  or  doctrine,  the 


THE   NEW   EVANGELISM  57 

essence  of  all  is  the  same  —  they  are  devices 
to  escape  spiritual  worship.  The  carnal 
mind  is  enmity  against  God  —  hates  any 
spiritual  exercise  or  effort.  This  is  at  the 
bottom  of  the  perpetuation  of  the  old  theol- 
ogy. There  is  nothing  a  man  will  not  do  to 
evade  spirituality.  Do  we  not  all  know 
moods  in  which  we  would  rather  walk 
twenty  miles  than  take  family  worship? 
And  there  are  moods  in  which  men  find  it 
of  all  efforts  least  easy  to  come  into  contact 
with  living  truth.  This  is  always  difficult : 
to  know  His  doctrine,  a  man  must  do  the 
will  of  God.  The  supreme  factor  in  arriv- 
ing at  spiritual  knowledge  is  not  theology, 
it  is  consecration.  But  for  years  and  years 
—  and  it  is  one  of  the  saddest  truths  in  this 
world  —  a  preacher  may  go  on  manipulating 
his  theological  forms  without  the  slightest 
exercise  of  religion,  unknown  to  himself,  and 
unnoticed  by  his  people. 

The  second  obstacle  is  laziness.  To 
make  doctrinal  sermons  requires  no  effort. 
A  man  has  simply  to  take  down  his  Hodge, 
and  there  it  is.  Every  Sabbath,  though  not 


58  THE  NEW   EVANGELISM 

formally  expressed,  he  has  the  same  heads. 
And  the  people  understand  it,  or  at  least 
they  understood  it  twenty  years  ago,  when 
he  preached,  and  preached  well  and  with 
real  heart,  in  the  bloom  of  his  early  ministry. 
But  for  years  now  he  has  been  a  mere 
mechanic,  a  repeater  of  phrases,  a  reproducer 
of  Hodge.  And  the  people — they  too  are 
spared  all  effort.  They  are  delighted  with 
their  minister.  He  in  these  days  preaches 
the  Gospel. 

A  caution  may  be  necessary.  In  His 
exhaustless  wisdom,  in  speaking  on  these 
subjects  the  Lord  Jesus  said:  "No  man 
having  tasted  the  old  wine  straightway 
desireth  new."  We  can  speak  of  these 
things  broadly  to  one  another  here,  but  we 
cannot  with  too  much  delicacy  insinuate  the 
new  Evangelism  upon  the  Church.  The 
old  is  better,  men  say;  and  if  any  man 
really  feels  that  it  is  better,  I  do  not  know 
that  we  should  urge  it  upon  him  at  all. 
There  are  many  saints  in  our  Churches,  and 
if  the  old  wine  is  really  their  life-blood,  we 
can  but  wish  them  God-speed  with  all  humil- 


THE   NEW  EVANGELISM  59 

ity.  Younger  men  will  come  to  us,  too, 
when  our  wine  is  old  and  the  sun  has  set 
upon  our  new  theology;  but  to  the  many 
who  are  waiting  for  the  dawn,  and  these  are 
many,  our  evangel  may  perhaps  bring  some 
light  and  fulfil  gladness  and  liberty. 

Least  of  all  have  we  anything  to  do  with 
wilfully  destroying  the  old.  Christ  was 
never  destructive  in  His  methods.  It  was 
very  exquisite  tact,  a  true  understanding  of 
men  and  a  delicate  respect  for  them  that 
made  Him  say,  "  I  came  not  to  destroy  but 
to  fulfil." 


The  Method  of  the 
New  Theology, 
and  some    of   its 
Applications 


Address  delivered  at  Theological  Society  of 
F.  C.  College,  Glasgow,  Jan.,  1892. 


The  Method  of  the   New 
Theology,   and  some  of 
its  Applications 

I  SHALL  begin  by  congratulating  you,  and 
myself,  on  the  free  theological  atmosphere 
in  which  it  is  the  lot  of  this  society  to  do  its 
work.  Never  has  there  been  fresher  air  in 
that  dusty  realm  than  there  is  to-day ;  and  if 
we  pay  the  price  for  our  freedom  in  bewilder- 
ment or  doubt,  in  the  suspicion  of  our  ene- 
mies, in  the  helplessness  of  our  wisest  friends 
to  give  us  certainty,  we  have  at  least  the 
sympathy  of  the  best  around  us,  and  the 
stimulus  of  working  in  an  age  when  theology 
is  no  longer  stagnant,  but  the  most  living  of 
all  the  sciences.  Of  what  we  seem  to  be 
leaving  behind  us  we  can  speak  without 
panic  or  regret.  Much  of  what  has  been  in 
faith  or  practice  is  visibly  passing  away. 


64  THE   METHOD   OF 

But  there  is  little  trace  in  this  process  of 
deliberate  destruction  ;  it  resembles  rather  a 
natural  decay.  And  it  is  the  beauty  of  this 
change,  and  the  guarantee  of  its  wholesome- 
ness,  that  it  has  worked  without  serious 
violence,  that  it  has  come,  as  all  great  king- 
doms do,  almost  without  observation. 

Though  this  may  appear  to  us  a  crisis,  it 
is  well  to  remind  ourselves  that  to  true 
thought  crisis  is  chronic.  There  is  nothing 
superior  about  ourselves  that  we  shall  have 
the  privilege  of  thinking  in  a  new  way  about 
theology.  It  is  the  world  that  progresses. 
Modern  thought  is  not  a  new  thing  in  his- 
tory, nor  is  it  an  unrelated  thing.  It  is 
simply  the  growing  fringe  of  the  coral  reef, 
the  bit  of  land  far  out,  in  contact  on  the  one 
hand  with  the  unexplored  sea  —  the  bit  of 
land  far  out  in  the  ocean  of  unexplored  truth 
—  on  the  other  with  the  territory  just  taken 
in,  and  the  place,  in  short,  where  busy  minds 
are  making  the  additions  to  what  other  busy 
minds  have  built  through  the  ages  into  the 
growing  continent  of  knowledge.  After  all, 
it  is  only  the  old  reef  that  we  extend ;  it  is 


THE   NEW   THEOLOGY  65 

on  the  past  we  build ;  and  the  man  who  ig- 
nores the  continuity  of  the  past,  and  attempts 
to  raise  an  island  of  his  own,  may  be  sure 
that  the  world's  lease  of  it  will  be  very  short. 
New  ideas  are,  in  the  main,  a  new  light  on 
old  ideas,  and  nothing  is  gained  by  a  ruthless 
handling  of  the  older  gospel  which. our  fathers 
held  and  taught,  and  which  for  the  most  part 
made  them  better  men  than  their  sons. 

But  what  is  this  newer  theology,  and  what 
is  the  direction  of  the  movement  where 
changes  and  perturbations  come  home  to  us 
in  such  a  society  as  this  with  so  great  an 
interest? 

To  some  the  new  theology  is  a  rearrange- 
ment of  doctrines  in  a  new  order,  a  bringing 
of  those  into  prominence  which  suit  the 
need  and  temper  of  the  age,  and  an  allowing 
of  others  to  sink  into  shadow  because  they 
are  either  distasteful  to  this  generation  or 
rest  on  a  basis  which  it  will  not  honour. 
We  are  told,  for  example,  that  the  accent  in 
the  modern  gospel  is  placed  no  longer  upon 
faith,  but  rather  upon  love.  We  are  told  by 
others  that  what  they  see  is  the  intricate 

5 


66  THE   METHOD   OF 

theology  of  Paul  beginning  to  give  place 
to  the  simpler  theology  of  John,  or  both 
being  for  the  time  forgotten  in  the  still 
simpler  Christianity  of  Christ.  To  others 
the  change  is  from  the  great  Latin  concep- 
tion of  the  Divine  Sovereignty  of  Augustine 
and  Calvin  to  the  earlier  Greek  theology, 
with  its  emphasis  on  the  immanence  of 
Christ,  or  to  its  renaissance  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  presentation  of  the  incarna- 
tion, and  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 

But,  important  as  these  characterisations 
are,  to  contrast  the  subject-matter  of  the 
new  and  the  old  Evangelism  is  not  enough. 
In  a  theological  society  we  must  get  down 
to  principles,  and  I  wish  in  a  word  to  state 
what  seems  to  me  the  essential  nature  of 
this  change,  and  to  illustrate  its  practical 
value  by  plain  examples. 

The  real  contrast  between  the  new  and 
the  old  theology  is  one  of  method.  The 
way  to  make  a  sermon  on  the  old  lines,  for 
example,  was  to  take  down  Hodge,  or  by  an 
earlier  generation  Owen,  and  see  what  the 
truth  was,  then  to  work  from  that  —  to  pro- 


THE   NEW  THEOLOGY  67 

claim  what  Hodge  said,  to  expound,  assert, 
reiterate,  appeal  in  the  name  of  Hodge  and 
anathematise  and  excommunicate  everybody 
who  did  not  agree  with  Hodge.  The  new 
method  declines  to  begin  with  Hodge,  or 
Owen,  or  even  Calvin.  It  does  not  work 
from  truth,  but  towards  truth.  It  aims 
not  at  asserting  a  dogma,  but  at  unearthing 
a  principle.  With  all  respect  to  authors,  it 
yet  declines  authority.  These  are  two  at 
least  of  its  more  obvious  marks  —  it  does 
not  only  allow,  but  insists  on  the  right  of 
private  judgment,  and  it  declines  authority. 
These  propositions  mean  practically  the 
same  thing,  and  so  far  from  being  novelties 
are  of  the  first  essence  of  Protestantism. 

It  is  only  to  reassert  these  propositions 
in  a  different  form  to  say  that  another  char- 
acteristic of  the  new  theology  is  its  essential 
spirituality.  We  are  accustomed  to  hear  it 
opposed  on  spiritual  grounds,  but  its  spiritu- 
ality is  really  its  most  outstanding  feature, 
and  as  contrasted  with  some  at  least  of  the 
old  theology  it  has  the  exclusive  right  to 
the  name.  The  mark  of  the  old  theology 


68  THE   METHOD   OF 

was  that  it  was  made  up  of  forms  and  propo- 
sitions. Filled  no  doubt  with  spirit  once, 
that  spirit  had  in  many  instances  wholly 
evaporated,  and  left  men  nothing  to  rest 
their  souls  on  but  a  set  of  phrases. 

The  task  of  the  newer  theology  has  been 
to  pierce  below  these  phrases  and  seek  out 
the  ethical  truth  which  underlay  them :  and 
having  found  that,  to  set  up  the  words  and 
phrases  round  it  once  more  if  possible ; 
and  where  not  possible,  to  set  up  new 
phrases  and  a  more  modern  expression.  It 
is  of  course  because  men  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  these  old  forms  that  they  fail  to 
recognise  the  truth  when  clothed  in  other 
expression,  and  therefore  raise  the  cry  of 
heresy  against  all  who  take  the  more  inward 
or  spiritual  view. 

Two  classes  in  the  community  must  of 
necessity,  and  always,  oppose  the  new  foun- 
dation —  the  Pharisee  who  is  not  able  to  see 
spirit  for  forms,  and  the  lazy  man  who  will 
not  take  the  trouble  to  see  spirit  in  form.  It 
is  always  easier  to  assert  truth  than  to  ex- 
amine it,  to  accept  it  ready  made  than  to 


THE   NEW  THEOLOGY  69 

verify  it  for  oneself,  and  we  must  always  have 
a  class  who  are  guilty  of  these  intellectual 
sins,  who  mistake  credulity  for  faith  and 
superstition  for  knowledge.  The  calm  way 
in  which  these  men  assume  that  they  are 
right  and  put  all  the  rest  of  us  on  our  de- 
fence is  a  miracle  of  effrontery,  a  miracle 
only  exceeded  in  wonder  by  the  tolerant  way 
it  is  submitted  to.  I  am  not  sure  but  that  if 
Christ  were  among  us  He  would  not  denounce 
the  Pharisee  as  He  did  of  old. 

But  it  is  not  enough  to  say  that  the  new 
theological  quest  is  a  movement  in  the 
direction  of  spirituality.  What  is  that  spiritu- 
ality ?  Is  it  a  mere  vagueness,  a  substitution 
of  the  shifting  sand  of  the  mysterious,  and 
the  undefined  for  the  buttressed  logic  of  the 
older  doctrines  ?  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the 
most  definite  thing  in  the  world.  Instead 
of  relaxing  the  hold  on  truth,  the  new 
method  makes  the  grasp  of  the  mind  upon  it 
a  thousand  times  more  certain.  Instead  of 
blurring  the  vision  of  unseen  things,  it  ren- 
ders them  self-transparent ;  instead  of  making 
acceptance  a  matter  of  mere  opinion,  or  of 


70  THE   METHOD   OF 

upbringing,  or  of  tradition,  it  forces  truth 
on  the  mind  with  a  new  authority — an 
authority  never  before  to  the  same  extent 
introduced  into  theological  teaching.  That 
authority  is  the  authority  of  law.  The  basis 
—  like  the  basis  of  all  modern  knowledge  — 
of  the  coming  theology  is  a  scientific  basis. 
It  is  a  basis  on  great  ethical  principles.  It  is 
not  a  series  of  conceptions  deduced  from 
another  central  conception  or  grouped  round 
a  favoured  doctrine  of  a  favourite  Divine  —  a 
Calvinism,  a  Lutheranz'.rw,  an  Arminianww, 
or  any  conceivable  ism.  It  is  a  grouping 
round  law,  spiritual,  moral,  natural  law,  a 
structure  reared  on  the  eternal  order  of  the 
world,  and  therefore  natural,  self-evident, 
self-sustaining  and  invulnerable. 

This  method,  dealing  as  it  does  with  law 
and  spirit,  ignores  nothing,  denies  nothing, 
and  formally  supplants  nothing  in  the  older 
subject-matter ;  but  it  tries  to  get  deeper  into 
the  heart  of  it,  and  seeks  a  new  life  even  in 
doctrines  which  seem  to  have  long  since 
petrified  into  stone.  This  was  largely 
Christ's  own  method.  He  dealt  with  prin- 


THE   NEW  THEOLOGY  71 

ciples  —  His  teaching  was  mainly  excava- 
tion —  the  disinterring  of  hidden  things,  the 
bringing  to  light  of  the  profound  ethical 
principles  hidden  beneath  Rabbinic  subtleties 
and  Pharisaic  forms. 

The  Reformation  —  Protestantism  —  these 
were  large  attempts  in  the  same  direction, 
and  modern  thought  is  the  heir  to  this  spirit. 
Being  a  process  of  growth,  and  not  a  series 
of  operations  upon  specific  theological  posi- 
tions, this  method  is  in  the  best  sense  con- 
structive. It  can  never  destroy  except  empty 
forms.  To  be  negative,  to  oppose  or  de- 
nounce time-honoured  doctrines  is  poor 
work  —  poor  work  which  unfortunately  many 
minds  and  pens  and  pulpits  are  continually 
trying  to  do.  The  only  legitimate  way  to 
destroy  an  old  doctrine  is  Christ's  way  to 
fulfil  it.  Instead  of  busying  themselves 
about  its  death  and  calling  their  congrega- 
tions ostentatiously  to  attend  the  funeral, 
the  new  theology  will  invite  them  rather  to 
witness  anew  the  resurrection  of  the  undying 
spirit  still  hidden  beneath  the  worn-out  body 
of  its  older  form. 


72  THE   METHOD   OF 

As  an  illustration  of  what  I  mean,  I  pro- 
pose to  select  one  or  two  Christian  doctrines 
which  in  their  current  forms  have  lost  their 
power  for  thinking  men,  and  try  to  show 
how  these  may  live  once  more  and  play  a 
powerful  part  in  current  teaching.  One  or 
two  of  the  greatest  Christian  truths  have 
already  been  so  abundantly  re-illuminated 
and  re-spiritualised  by  modern  literature  and 
preaching  that  one  need  only  name  them. 
An  admirable  case  is  the  doctrine  of  inspira- 
tion. It  is  idle  to  deny  that  the  authority  of 
the  Bible  was  all  but  gone  within  this  gen- 
eration. The  old  view  had  become  abso- 
lutely untenable,  misleading  and  mischievous. 
But  from  the  hands  of  reverent  men  who 
have  studied  the  inward  characters  of  these 
books,  we  have  again  got  our  Bible.  The 
theory  of  development,  the  study  of  the  Bible 
as  a  library  of  religious  writings  rather  than 
as  a  book ;  the  treatment  of  the  writers  as 
authors  and  not  as  pens  ;  the  mere  discovery 
that  religion  has  not  come  out  of  the  Bible, 
but  that  the  Bible  has  come  out  of  religion  : 
these  announcements  have  not  only  destroyed 


THE   NEW  THEOLOGY  73 

with  a  breath  a  hundred  infidel  objections  to 
Scripture,  but  opened  up  a  world  of  new  life 
and  interest  to  Christian  people. 

So  thoroughly  has  the  spiritual  as  opposed 
to  the  mechanical  theory  of  inspiration  im- 
bued all  recent  teaching  that  the  battle  for 
Scotland  at  least  may  be  said  to  be  now  won. 
If  there  is  anything  further  to  be  said  on  the 
subject,  indeed,  it  is  to  caution  ourselves 
against  going  too  far  or  being  very  positive. 

Modern  criticism  in  this  country,  espe- 
cially of  the  Old  Testament,  is  not  in  a  good 
way.  The  permission  to  embark  upon  it  at 
all  is  sudden,  and  very  few  men  are  suffi- 
ciently equipped  for  a  responsible  recon- 
struction. Probably  in  Old  Testament 
criticism  there  are  not  ten  competent  ex- 
perts in  the  country,  and  these  are  all  more 
or  less  disagreed,  and,  what  is  more,  afraid  to 
announce  their  disagreements  lest  the  others 
should  turn  and  rend  them.  One  of  the 
greatest  of  these  ten  has  just  written  an  im- 
portant book.  I  happen  to  know  that  it  is 
being  handed  about  among  the  nine  for  a 
review  in  a  certain  high-class  theological 


74  THE   METHOD   OF 

monthly,  and  not  a  man  of  them  will  touch 
it. 

Hasty  conclusions  as  to  authorship  or 
canonicity  are  as  foreign  to  the  scientific 
spirit  as  the  old  dogmatism.  Guinness 
Rogers  has  well  pointed  out  that  in  the  far 
future,  when  English  has  become  a  dead 
language,  almost  no  internal  evidence  would 
allow  the  literary  critic  to  allocate  the  author- 
ship of  John  Gilpin,  e.g.,  to  the  melancholy 
recluse  who  wrote  the  Olney  hymns ;  and  in 
dealing  with  questions  of  Biblical  authorship 
the  minute  scholarship  of  this  day,  based  on 
favourite  words  and  particular  styles  of 
thought,  is  often  in  danger  of  ignoring  such 
broader  facts  as  the  versatility  of  human  na- 
ture, the  changing  moods  of  thinkers,  the 
contradictions  which  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr. 
Hyde  exhibit  within  the  same  man's  soul  at 
the  same  period  or  at  contrasted  periods  of  his 
life  of  which  history  can  keep  no  cognisance. 

This  remark  applies  with  even  greater 
force  to  the  subject-matter  of  the  Books. 
We  have  treatises  written,  for  instance,  on 
the  theology  of  Peter.  Men  talk  of  the 


THE   NEW  THEOLOGY  75 

Petrine  conception  of  this  and  the  Petrine 
presentation  of  that;  they  contrast  the 
Petrine  standpoint  with  the  Pauline  and  the 
Johannine,  and  even  go  the  length  of  fixing 
the  proportion  in  which  the  various  theologi- 
cal truths  were  held  in  the  Petrine  system. 
The  absurdity  of  all  this  may  be  seen  from  a 
single  fact.  The  entire  Petrine  remains  that 
have  come  down  to  us  and  upon  which  all 
these  elaborate  structures  are  reared  amount 
to  a  page  or  two,  all  that  the  apostle  ever 
wrote  or  all  that  is  left  to  us.  They  could 
be  read  to  a  congregation  in  exactly  half  the 
time  that  it  would  take  a  minister  to  deliver 
a  half-hour's  sermon.  Think  of  the  absurdity 
of  judging  a  man's  theology,  or  the  propor- 
tion in  which  he  held  its  various  parts,  by 
half  a  sermon,  and  you  will  never  again  hear 
the  word  Petrine  without  a  smile.  The 
men,  and  especially  the  Germans,  who  allow 
internal  evidence  —  not  seeing  its  exces- 
sive limitations  —  to  be  abused  in  this 
way  are  the  true  literalists,  and  their  pro- 
vincial analysis  can  only  hinder  the  victory 
of  a  spiritual  cause.  If  the  new  theology 


76  THE   METHOD   OF 

is  the  scientific  spirit,  that  class  of  work  is 
its  stultification. 

But  to  pass  on  to  another  instance.  The 
unearthing  of  the  tremendous  ethical  prin- 
ciple underlying  the  atonement  is  now  restor- 
ing that  central  doctrine  to  theology  just 
when  in  its  mechanical  forms  it  was  on  the 
point  of  being  discredited  by  every  thinking 
mind.  The  Salvation  Army  preacher,  it  is 
true,  still  preaches  it  as  a  syllogism,  and  pays 
the  penalty  in  the  utter  apathy  or  mysti- 
fication of  his  hearers,  at  least  on  that  point. 
But  no  man  who  preaches  the  spirit  of 
it,  instead  of  the  phrases  of  it,  will 
lose  his  audience.  The  man  who  makes 
words,  even  Bible  words,  the  substitute  for 
thought,  can  never  be  understood  of  the 
common  people  at  the  present  day.  There 
is  nothing  the  street  preacher  needs  to 
be  warned  against  with  more  earnestness 
than  the  mechanical  preaching  of  the  syllo- 
gisms of  the  atonement.  One  listens  often 
and  with  admiration  and  respect  to  the  pow- 
erful way  the  street  preacher  brings  home 
the  great  facts  of  personal  sin  to  the  crowd 


THE   NEW  THEOLOGY  77 

around  him,  to  his  almost  melting  appeal  for 
instant  decision  to  this  offer  of  salvation  — 
nearly  always  in  my  experience  glowing  with 
real  enthusiasm  and  backed  with  an  almost 
contagious  faith  and  hope.  But  when  he 
tries  at  that  point  to  answer  the  simple  in- 
quiry, How?  when  he  stands  face  to  face 
with  the  question  of  the  drunkard,  leaning 
against  the  lamp-post,  "  What  must  I,  the 
drunkard,  standing  here  to-night  in  Argyle 
Street,  do  to  be  saved  ?  "  he  takes  refuge 
in  some  text  or  metaphor,  a  proposition, 
and  passes  on.  What  I  complain  of  in 
Gospel  addresses  is  that  many  have  no  Gos- 
pel in  them,  no  tangible  thing  for  a  drowning 
man  to  really  see  and  clutch.  They  break 
down  at  the  very  point  where  they  ought  to 
be  most  strong  and  luminous.  To  tell  the 
average  wife-beater  to  take  shelter  behind  the 
blood  or  to  hide  himself  in  the  cleft  is  to  put 
him  off  with  a  phrase.  I  do  not  object  to 
these  metaphors,  I  believe  in  metaphors.  I 
go  the  length  of  holding  that  you  never  get 
nearer  to  truth  than  in  a  metaphor;  but  you 
have  not  told  this  man  the  whole  truth  about 


78  THE   METHOD    OF 

your  metaphor,  nor  have  you  touched  his 
soul  or  his  affections  with  what  lies  beneath 
that  metaphor ;  and  it  falls  upon  his  ear  as  a 
tale  he  has  heard  a  thousand  times  before. 
It  is  not  obstinacy  that  keeps  this  poor  man 
from  religion  —  it  is  pure  bewilderment  as 
to  what  in  the  world  we  are  driving  at.  The 
new  theology  when  it  preaches  the  atone- 
ment will  not  be  less  loyal  to  that  doctrine, 
but  more.  It  will  not  take  refuge  in  the 
poor  excuse  for  slipshod  preaching  and  un- 
thought-out  doctrines  that  we  must  wait  for 
God's  light  to  break.  God's  light  breaks 
through  some  men's  preaching,  through  some 
clear,  honest,  convincing  statement  of  truth, 
and  not  occultly.  Faith  cometh  by  hearing, 
and  if  our  plan  of  salvation  is  not  telling 
upon  our  audience  it  is  blasphemy  to  blame 
God's  spirit.  The  blame  lies  in  our  own 
spirit  and  in  our  offering  words  instead  of 
spirit,  and  in  our  neglect  to  spend  time  and 
thought,  in  trying  to  get  down  to  the  professed 
meaning  and  omnipotent  dynamic  of  the  law 
of  Sacrifice. 

If  a  man  has  not  something  more  to  say 


THE   NEW  THEOLOGY  79 

about  the  atonement  than  the  conventional 
phrases,  let  him  be  silent.  By  introducing 
the  words  from  time  to  time  he  may  earn  the 
cheap  reputation  of  being  orthodox ;  but  it 
is  for  him  to  consider  whether  that  is  an 
object  for  which  his  conscience  will  let  him 
work.  There  are  thousands  of  tender  and 
conscientious  souls  now  in  our  midst  who 
cannot  find  that  foothold  on  the  conventional 
doctrine  which  they  are  led  to  believe  their 
teachers  have,  and  without  which  they  feel 
themselves  excommunicate  from  the  work  of 
the  Church  and  the  fold  of  Christ.  If  we 
see  no  further  behind  these  words,  let  us  say 
so,  and  not  keep  up  this  fraud,  or  preach 
these  words,  until  we  have  sunk  our  spirits 
in  them  and  can  teach  them  with  vital  force 
and  truth. 

Gentlemen,  I  do  not  for  a  moment  mean 
that  we  are  to  treat  our  congregations  to 
dissertations  on  biology.  Nature  —  human 
nature  —  are  to  be  to  us  but  discoveries  of 
things  as  they  are,  the  expression  of  prin- 
ciple, the  theatre  on  whose  stupendous  stage 


8o  THE   METHOD   OF 

each  can  see  with  his  own  eyes  the  great 
laws  act. 

And  this  leads  me  to  a  final  statement. 
We  have  seen  that  the  method  of  the  new 
Evangelism  is  to  deal  with  principles.  The 
mental  act  by  which  we  are  to  search  for 
truth,  truth  being  in  this  spiritual  form,  is 
not  therefore  to  be  so  much  the  reason,  but 
the  imagination.  We  are  to  put  up  truth 
when  we  deliver  truth  to  others,  not  in  the 
prepositional  form,  but  in  some  visual  form 
—  some  form  in  which  it  will  be  seen  with- 
out any  attempt  to  prove.  Truth  never 
really  requires  to  be  proved.  The  best  you 
can  do  for  a  law  is  to  exhibit  it. 

Gentlemen,  as  a  preparation  for  the  work 
of  the  new  Evangelism  in  which  you  are  to 
spend  your  lives,  I  commend  you  to  the 
study  of  the  principles  of  the  laws  of  God  in 
nature,  and  in  human  nature :  the  develop- 
ment of  that  seeing  power,  as  opposed  to 
mere  logic,  which  discerns  the  unseen 
through  the  seen.  About  the  greatest  thing 
a  man  can  do,  Ruskin  tells  us,  is  to  see 
something,  and  tell  others  what  he  sees. 


THE   NEW  THEOLOGY  81 

The  Gospel  as  Christ  gave  it  was  a  gift  to 
the  seeing  power  in  man.  His  speech  was 
almost  wholly  addressed  to  the  imagination, 
to  the  imagination  in  its  true  sense,  and  this, 
which  is  the  highest  language  of  science,  is 
also  the  language  of  poetry  and  of  the 
poetry  of  the  soul,  which  is  religion.  Unless 
we  can  fill  the  new  theology  with  what  the 
soul  sees  and  feels,  and  sees  to  be  true  and 
feels  to  be  living,  it  will  be  as  juiceless  and 
inert  as  the  old  dogmatic. 

For  it  is  only  a  living  spirit  of  truth  that 
can  touch  dead  spirit,  and  the  test  of  any 
theology  is  not  that  it  is  logically  clear  or 
even  intellectually  solid,  but  that  it  carries 
with  it  some  sanctifying  power. 

These  examples  of  the  rejuvenescence  of 
old  truths  under  the  more  spiritual  treatment 
of  an  ethical  theology  are  more  or  less 
obvious.  I  wish  in  the  time  that  remains  to 
apply  the  method  a  little  more  in  detail  to 
one  particular  department  of  theology,  which 
is  perhaps  less  intruded  upon  by  modern 
teachers.  The  revolt  of  the  moral  sense  of 
this  country  against  the  doctrine  of  a  physical 


82  THE   METHOD   OF 

hell,  and  the  appeal  to  a  Judgment  Day,  has 
lately  led  to  almost  complete  silence  on  the 
whole  subject  of  eschatology.  Is  this  great 
theme  or  any  part  of  it  —  say  the  conception 
of  a  Day  of  Judgment  —  not  capable  of  a 
deeper  ethical  treatment?  If  the  Divine' 
judgment  upon  sin  lies  in  the  natural  law  of 
heredity,  may  we  not  find  among  the  laws  of 
the  moral  world  some  larger  and  more  uni- 
versal principle  of  judgment  which  shall 
restore  the  appeal  of  these  forgotten  dogmas 
to  their  place  in  religious  teaching?  It  is 
quite  clear  we  must  discuss  this  or  remain 
silent.  No  man  can  now  say  such  words  to 
his  people  as  these  —  I  quote  from  no  less  an 
authority  than  Jonathan  Edwards,  —  "The 
God  that  holds  you  over  the  pit  of  Hell, 
much  as  one  holds  a  spider  or  some  loath- 
some insect  over  the  fire,  abhors  you.  It  is 
nothing  but  His  Hand  that  holds  you  from 
falling  into  the  fire  every  moment ;  it  is  to  be 
ascribed  to  nothing  else  that  you  did  not  go 
to  Hell  last  night;  and  there  is  no  other 
reason  why  you  have  not  dropped  into  Hell 
since  you  arose  in  the  morning.  .  .  .  There 


THE   NEW  THEOLOGY  83 

is  nothing  else  to  be  given  as  a  reason  why 
you  do  not  this  very  moment  drop  down  into 
Hell."1 

That  kind  of  thing  is  not  over,  though  we 
may  hear  little  of  it. 

Many  of  you  have  seen  some,  at  least,  of 
the  great  classical  pictures  of  the  Last  Judg- 
ment. Here  [in  the  next  chapter]  is  Rus- 
kin's  account  of  the  greatest  of  them  all,  the 
Last  Judgment  of  Tintoretto,  which  hangs 
on  a  well-known  church  wall  in  Venice,  in 
full  view  of  the  congregation. 

o      o 

1  Guinness  Rogers'  ;'  Present-Day  Religion  and  The- 
ology," p.  150. 


Survival   of  the 
Fittest 


Formed  part  of  preceding  address 


Survival   of  the 
Fittest 

PERHAPS  the  most  weird  picture  in 
"  Modern  Painters  "  is  the  description 
of  Tintoretto's  "  Last  Judgment."  Dante  in 
poetry,  Giotto,  Orcagna,  and  Michael  Angelo 
on  canvas,  have  spent  their  imaginations  on 
the  unimaginable  theme;  but  Tintoretto 
alone,  says  Mr.  Ruskin,  has  grappled  with 
this  awful  event  in  its  verity:  "Bat-like,  out 
of  the  holes  and  caverns  and  shadows  of 
the  earth,  the  bones  gather,  and  the  clay- 
heaps  heave,  rattling  and  adhering  into 
half-kneaded  anatomies,  that  crawl  and 
startle,  and  struggle  up  among  the  putrid 
weeds  with  the  clay  clinging  to  their  clotted 
hair,  and  their  heavy  eyes  sealed  with  the 
earth  darkness  yet,  like  his  of  old  who  went 
his  way  unseeing  to  Siloam  Pool;  shaking 


88     SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST 

off  one  by  one  the  dreams  of  the  prison- 
home,  hardly  hearing  the  clangour  of  the 
trumpets  of  the  armies  of  God,  blinded  yet 
more,  as  they  awake,  by  the  white  light  of 
the  new  Heaven,  until  the  great  vortex  of 
the  four  winds  bears  up  their  bodies  to  the 
judgment  seat;  the  firmament  is  all  full  of 
them,  a  very  dust  of  human  souls,  that  drifts, 
and  floats,  and  falls  in  the  interminable, 
inevitable  light;  the  bright  clouds  are  dark- 
ened with  them  as  with  thick  snow,  currents 
of  atom  life  in  the  arteries  of  heaven,  now 
soaring  up  slowly,  farther  and  higher,  and 
higher  still,  till  the  eye  and  the  thought  can 
follow  no  farther,  borne  up,  wingless,  by  their 
inward  faith  and  by  the  angel  powers  in- 
visible, now  hurled  in  countless  drifts  of 
horror  before  the  breath  of  their  condemna- 
tion."1 Such  is  the  picture,  "not  typically 
nor  symbolically,"  Mr.  Ruskin  tells  us,  "but 
as  they  may  see  it  who  shall  not  sleep,  but 
be  changed." 

That  artist  and  critic  have  drunk  in  the 
spirit   of   their  dreadful  subject  may  be  un- 

1  "  Modern  Painters,"  vol.  ii.,  p   183. 


SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST     89 

questioned.  That  pictures  of  the  Last  Judg- 
ment, whether  with  pen  or  pigment,  serve  a 
certain  function,  is  also  beyond  dispute.  To 
deny  this  would  be  to  condemn  the  whole  of 
sacred  art.  And  to  have  the  mute  appeal  of 
the  great  religious  masterpieces  silenced  in 
the  thronged  galleries  of  Europe,  where  they 
have  stood  like  beacons  to  the  passing 
stream  of  life  for  centuries,  would  be  a 
blow  to  Christianity.  But  it  is  no  less 
true  that  to  a  class  of  minds  the  dramatic 
aspects  of  the  Last  Judgment  appeal  in 
vain.  The  material  imagery,  we  are  as- 
sured, the  marshalling  of  the  prisoners  at 
the  trumpet  call,  the  Judge  and  the  great 
White  Throne,  are  presentations  to  an  age 
which  has  passed  away.  The  very  ty ing- 
down  of  Judgment  to  a  Day,  the  whole 
machinery  of  a  human  court  "  which  meets, 
goes  through  its  docket  and  adjourns,"  are 
out  of  harmony  with  the  other  ways  of 
God ;  and,  whatever  reality  may  underlie  it, 
the  conception,  as  it  stands  at  present,  is 
too  gross  and  artificial  to  find  acceptance 
with  a  scientific  age. 


90     SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST 

Many  will  wonder  what  science  means  by 
this  fastidiousness.  Some  will  quite  fail 
even  to  enter  into  the  state  of  mind  which 
feels  it,  or  which  presumes  to  question  the 
congruity  or  incongruity  of  what  has  been 
revealed.  Nevertheless,  this  is  a  real  diffi- 
culty. And,  whatever  be  its  genesis,  we  are 
compelled  to  recognise  an  attitude  of  mind 
which  somehow  disqualifies  its  possessor 
from  being  greatly  influenced  by  such  spec- 
tacular representations  as  have  been  named. 
Our  feelings  are  a  great  mystery ;  the  least 
definable  are  often  those  which  sway  us  most. 
But  to  meet  this  state  of  mind,  rather  than 
to  defend  its  reasonableness  or  ban  its  pre- 
sumption, is  the  question  before  us.  For  the 
difficulty,  after  giving  up  a  truth  in  one  form, 
of  winning  it  back  in  another  is  very  great. 
And  it  is  certainly  true  that  for  want  of  a 
connecting  link  between  the  populardoctrines 
of  eschatology,  and  the  facts  and  ways  of  na- 
ture and  of  the  moral  life,  many  who  in  this 
instance  have  repudiated  the  form  have  come 
to  abandon  the  substance.  To  restore  the 
substance  and  meaning  of  the  idea  of  judg- 


SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST     91 

ment  by  seeking  to  renovate  the  form  is  our 
object  now.  We  are  far  from  claiming  that 
the  form  to  be  presented  is  the  best,  still  less 
that  it  contains  the  whole  of  the  substance. 
Truth  has  many  forms,  and  the  whole  sub- 
stance of  this  truth  is,  perhaps,  not  given  as 
yet  to  man  to  know.  But  upon  this,  the 
most  solemn  thought  that  has  ever  been  pre- 
sented to  the  conscience  of  mankind,  it  is  im- 
possible that  reason  should  be  silent,  or  nature 
withhold  its  contribution  from  such  a  theme. 
We  have  hinted  that  the  scientific  diffi- 
culty in  accepting  the  doctrine  in  its  conven- 
tional form  is  one  of  standpoint.  But  the 
particular  point  of  the  objection  is  worth 
defining,  and  for  a  remarkable  reason.  What 
science  really  rebels  at  in  the  old  doctrine  is 
its  externalness.  It  is  outside  nature,  a  for- 
eign and  unanticipated  element,  a  breach  of 
continuity.  And  what  science  would  like  to 
see  is  a  universal  principle  —  a  principle,  if 
possible,  operating  from  within,  bound  up 
with  nature  itself,  and  involved  in  the  general 
system  of  things.  Now,  such  a  claim  coming 
from  science  is  in  every  way  astonishing  and 


92     SURVIVAL   OF  THE   FITTEST 

unexpected.  For  observe  what  it  is.  It  is 
simply  a  demand  upon  religion  for  a  further 
spirituality.  It  is  really  materialism  that 
science  objects  to  in  the  old  doctrine  —  it 
objects  to  a  material  throne,  and  bar,  and 
trumpet,  to  an  external  law,  to  a  judgment 
from  without  rather  than  from  within.  The 
protest,  in  fact,  is  a  rebuke  to  religion  for  the 
grossness  of  its  conceptions,  for  its  tardy 
abandonment  of  the  letter,  for  the  perman- 
ence it  has  given  to  provisional  forms  —  in 
short,  for  its  unspirituality. 

Nor  is  this  the  first  instance  in  which 
science  has  called  the  attention  of  religion  to 
this  crude  externalness  in  its  ideas.  In  sev- 
eral well-known  instances  it  has  already 
imposed  upon  religion  the  useful  task  of  re- 
modelling its  doctrines  ;  and  in  each  case  the 
gain  has  been  in  the  direction  of  greater 
inwardness,  greater  naturalness,  greater  spiri- 
tuality. And  the  still  more  interesting  fact 
remains  to  be  noted,  that  it  is  generally 
science  itself  which  supplies  the  material  for 
the  remodelled  doctrine.  As  it  destroys,  it 
fulfils  —  the  very  discoveries  which  begat  its 


SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST    93 

doubt  become,  wnen  rearranged  and  incor- 
porated by  religion,  the  materials  for  a  firmer 
faith.  For  instance,  the  grossness  and  exter- 
nal ness  of  the  old  theory  of  a  Six  Days' 
Creation  was  once  a  serious  stumbling-block 
to  science.  Students  of  nature  were  unac- 
customed to  find  nature  working  in  ways  so 
abrupt;  facts  proving  the  slow  development 
of  the  world  had  accumulated;  the  Divine- 
fiat  hypothesis  was  challenged,  and  finally 
abandoned.  And  then  out  of  these  very 
facts  grew  the  new  and  beautiful  theory  that 
Creation  was  not  a  stupendous  and  catastro- 
phic operation  performed  from  without,  but 
a  silent  process  acting  from  within.  So, 
having  destroyed  the  old  conception,  science 
itself  contributed  the  new  —  a  conception 
which  it  could  not  only  intelligently  accept, 
but  which  for  religion  also  left  everything 
more  worthy  of  worship  than  before. 

Again,  consider  a  case  where  the  difficulty 
of  believing  an  accepted  theory  is  not  physi- 
cal but  moral.  Take  the  second  command- 
ment. The  impression  this  law  would  leave 
on  the  early  mind  would  certainly  be  that, 


94     SURVIVAL   OF  THE   FITTEST 

in  visiting  the  iniquities  of  fathers  upon 
children,  God  weighed  each  case  separately 
and  administered  special  judgment  upon 
cases  of  exceptional  enormity.  God  admin- 
istered punishment,  that  is  to  say,  from  with- 
out, by  judicial  enactments,  augmenting  or 
remitting  sentence  according  to  discretion. 
But  instead  of  referring  the  enforcement  of 
this  commandment  to  an  external  court,  we 
now  see  that  execution  of  its  sentences  are 
transferred  to  the  laws  of  nature.  Instead 
of  working  from  without,  from  above  nature, 
it  works,  in  ordinary  circumstances  at  least, 
within  it.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  ordinary  law  of 
heredity  —  the  law  of  transmission  from  sire 
to  son  of  the  dispositions,  tendencies,  temp- 
tations, and  diseases  of  the  parent.  Now, 
while  losing  nothing  here,  much  is  gained. 
The  idea  of  judgment  for  sin  is  as  much  in 
the  law  as  ever,  the  personality  of  the  Judge 
is  as  before ;  but  the  seat  of  judgment  has 
changed,  and  the  mechanism  of  justice  is 
replaced  by  the  working  of  inherent  laws. 
The  very  laws  of  nature  have  become  "  the 
hands  of  the  living  God." 


SURVIVAL  OF   THE   FITTEST    95 

Now  with  these  two  examples  before  us 
of  the  change  of  emphasis  from  the  external 
to  the  internal,  may  we  not  ask  whether  any 
parallel  change  is  warranted  in  the  case  of 
the  larger  doctrine  now  in  view?  Should 
it  not  also  have  an  inward  ground,  a  discov- 
erable law?  Is  it  an  operation  from  with- 
out, or  a  process  from  within  ?  Is  there  no 
anticipation,  in  short,  in  nature  of  a  final 
judgment?  As  it  is  not  intended  to  deal 
here  directly  with  the  Scripture  references, 
I  will  leave  them  with  two  remarks. 

i.  The  Scriptures  are  not  explicit  —  are, 
in  fact,  very  far  from  explicit.  Let  any  one 
collate  the  various  references  to  this  subject 
—  and  they  are  very  numerous  —  sift  them 
with  whatever  care  he  likes,  arrange  them 
upon  whatever  principle  he  likes,  or  upon 
all  known  principles  of  interpretation  up  to 
the  present  time,  and  he  will  find  them  per- 
plexing, and  even  contradictory.  Here,  if 
anywhere,  then,  there  is  room  for  the  New 
Testament  to  come  in  and  seek  out  a  basis 
of  law.  And  I  select  the  field  as  an  illustra- 
tion, simply  because  it  is  a  remote  one,  and 
at  the  first  blush  most  unpromising. 


96     SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST 

2.  That  while  Christ  lays  down,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  parables  of  Judgment,  the  great 
ethical  principles  of  eschatology,  nearly  all 
beyond  that,  in  His  teaching  and  in  Paul's, 
has  a  purely  Jewish  or  Rabbinic  basis.  No 
theme  is  more  prominent  in  Jewish  litera- 
ture. The  older  portions  of  the  book  of 
Enoch,  for  example,  contain  constant  allu- 
sions to  a  "  Great  Judgment,"  "  The  Day 
of  the  Great  Judgment,"  "  The  Great  Day  of 
Judgment,"  "  The  Great  Day,"  "  The  Day  of 
Judgment,"  "  The  Righteous  Judgment,"  and 
"  The  Last  Judgment  for  all  Eternity."  The 
Sibylline  books  and  the  Apocalypses  gener- 
ally teem  with  detailed  descriptions  of  such 
an  event  variously  conceived  of,  variously 
dated,  and  for  the  most  part  having  a  politi- 
cal origin  and  significance.  "  Even  the  idea 
of  '  a  day '  (according  to  Stanton)  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  originally  taken  from  a 
judge  holding  court,  but  from  a  terrible  tri- 
umphal conqueror  executing  vengeance  in  a 
day  of  battle  and  slaughter." : 

1  Stanton,    "  Jewish   and    Christian    Messiah."      Clark, 
Edinburgh,  p.  136. 


SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST     97 

But  to  proceed.  The  position  to  be  now 
taken  up  is  not  only  the  one  which  will  be 
obvious  on  a  little  thought  —  that  Judgment 
is  not  an  act  to  be  accomplished,  an  act  sud- 
den, spectacular,  explosive,  but  a  quiet  pro- 
cess now  and  ever  going  on  —  but  that  that 
process  is  simply  the  operation  of  one  of  the 
widest  and  most  familiar  of  the  Laws  of 
Nature. 

This  law  let  me  first  bring  forward  in  its 
simplicity  as  mere  natural  law ;  later  on,  we 
shall  reach  its  ethical  relations ;  and  I  must 
be  pardoned  for  speaking  here  my  own 
native  tongue  of  Science  rather  than  at- 
tempting a  translation  into  ethics.  The 
name  of  this  law  is  the  Survival  of  the 
Fittest.  Eternal  life  under  the  last  analysis 
is  a  question  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 
And  Judgment  is  a  question  of  natural  selec- 
tion. In  spite  of  the  constantly  reiterated 
protest  of  popular  theology  that  science  and 
religion  part  company  for  ever  over  this  law, 
in  spite  of  the  apparent  objection  that  while 
in  nature  the  prize  is  to  the  strong,  and  the 
weak  go  to  the  wall,  in  the  kingdom  of  grace 

7 


98     SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST 

the  bruised  reed  is  not  broken  and  the 
weary  and  heavy  laden  win ;  it  is  the  most 
certain  of  truths  that  in  nature  and  grace 
alike  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
holds.  A  moment's  reflection  will  show  that 
in  thus  contrasting  the  genius  of  nature  and 
the  genius  of  Christianity  by  way  of  objec- 
tion, the  word  fitness  is  used  in  two  totally 
different  senses.  In  the  one  case  it  is  em- 
ployed in  a  biological,  in  the  other  in  an 
ethical  sense.  When  it  is  said  that  a  fish 
survives  in  water  because  it  is  "  fit "  for  it,  all 
that  is  meant  is  that  the  organisation  of  the 
fish  is,  in  certain  respects,  adapted  for  this 
element.  And  when  it  is  said  that  eternal 
life  is  a  question  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest, 
what  is  implied  is  that  it  is  a  question  of  the 
survival  of  the  adapted  —  of  those  who,  by 
some  means,  have  become  specially  fitted  or 
equipped  for  living  in  this  element.  In  this 
—  the  only  possible  scientific  sense  —  it  is 
literally  and  eternally  true  that  the  future 
state  is  a  question  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest.  The  survival  of  the  fittest  means, 
then,  only  the  survival  of  the  adapted.  It  is 


SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST    99 

not  asserted,  meantime,  that  the  survival  of 
the  adapted  means  also  the  survival  of  the 
worthiest.  Whether  worthiness  be,,  after  all, 
the  same  thing  as  fitness  will  be  referred  to 
presently.  But  that  no  moral  quality  what- 
ever is  involved  in  the  operation  of  this  law 
is  a  point  to  be  marked,  for  the  basis  of  judg- 
ment for  which  we  contend  is  one  involved 
in  the  very  constitution  of  the  world. 

The  essential  thing  in  any  organism  in 
relation  to  its  surroundings,  the  characteris- 
tic quality  on  which  life  depends,  is  adapta- 
tion to  environment.  If  an  organism  is  to 
survive  in  water,  it  must  be  adapted  to  the 
aquatic  condition  by  the  development  of  a 
water-breathing  faculty,  a  gill.  If  it  is  to 
change  its  surroundings  so  as  to  live  in  air 
—  as  actually  happens  during  the  life-history 
of  the  common  frog — it  must  become 
adapted  to  correspond  with  the  atmosphere 
by  the  development  of  an  air-breathing 
apparatus,  or  lung.  So  if  the  highest  or- 
ganism is  to  be  in  correspondence  with  the 
Divine  Environment,  he  must  be  adapted  to 
it.  He,  the  Christian,  must  have  undergone 


ioo    SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

some  process  of  adaptation  to  environment 
—  theologically  called  sanctification  —  in 
virtue  of  which  he  is  able  to  correspond,  to 
commune,  with  God.  Only  those  so  adapted 
can  possibly  exist  in  this  element,  even  as  those 
only  equipped  with  gill  can  breathe  in  water, 
or  those  with  lung  in  air.  But  this  is  simply 
to  repeat  once  more  that  the  adapted  survive ; 
that  the  fit  survive ;  that  they  are  "  selected  "  to 
live  by  the  possession  of  the  required  faculty. 
Suppose,  now,  to  point  the  application, 
these  varying  degrees  of  adaptation  to  envi- 
ronment to  be  tested  by  actual  experiment. 
A  pool  teeming  with  living  organisms  sud- 
denly dries  up.  The  vast  majority  of  these 
organisms  are  adapted  for  an  aquatic  en- 
vironment and  for  no  other,  and  with  the 
removal  of  this  they  perish.  In  terms  of 
adaptation  to  environment  they  are  judged. 
One  or  two,  however,  such  as  the  water- 
newt,  in  addition  to  the  special  adaptation 
required  for  the  liquid  element,  possess  the 
further  power  of  corresponding  with  the 
earth  and  air  in  virtue  of  the  possession  of 
a  lung.  So  long,  therefore,  as  it  can  remain 


SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST     101 

in  correspondence  with  the  earth  and  air, 
it  lives.  Suppose  next  some  climatic  change 
to  occur,  or  some  physical  catastrophe  such 
as  the  sudden  eruption  of  a  volcano,  and 
that  those  who  escaped  from  the  water  are 
no  longer  able  to  adapt  themselves  to  this 
further  change.  In  terms  of  environment 
they  are  judged.  Suppose,  however,  that 
another  organism,  man,  within  the  affected 
area  was  able  to  escape.  His  survival  is 
due  solely  to  the  superior  complexity  of 
his  organisation.  By  his  intelligence  he 
foretold  the  calamity,  and  prepared  for  it, 
or  with  the  aid  of  his  inventions  he  swiftly 
withdrew  to  a  safe  distance.  But  suppose 
next,  by  a  mightier  catastrophe,  the  earth 
itself  should  collide  with  another  star,  and 
make  his  new  environment  again  untenable. 
What  is  to  become  of  him  ?  It  will  depend 
on  what  correspondences  remain,  and  on 
what  environment  still  exists.  But  the  old 
law  holds.  He  will  go  where  he  is  fit  for, 
and  be  in  what  is  fit  for  him.  If  he  has 
any  correspondence  with  eternity,  he  will  go 
on  living  in  terms  of  these  correspondences. 


102     SURVIVAL   OF  THE   FITTEST 

He  will  go  on  living  in  terms  of  his  cor- 
respondences —  this  is  the  point  of  it  all. 
And  this  is  natural  selection;  it  is  another 
way  of  saying  that  the  fit  to  survive,  survive. 
And  is  there  not  here  a  principle  of  Judg- 
ment ?  The  organisms  in  the  drying  pool, 
the  water-newt  upon  the  quaking  land,  the 
man  at  the  world's  collapse  —  each  is  allo- 
cated to  his  place  according  to  his  corre- 
spondences. No  external  act  of  choice  takes 
place ;  there  is  an  inherent  claim  to  live, 
or  an  inherent  necessity  to  die,  in  the  organ- 
ism itself.  This  claim  is  founded  on  the 
fulfilment  or  non-fulfilment  of  an  essential 
and  imperative  condition ;  it  is  a  necessary 
consequence  of  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest;  it  is  not  an  arbitrary  appointment 
or  reward,  it  is  the  natural  evolution  of  an 
organism  in  terms  of  its  correspondences. 

Nature  sits  upon  no  far-off  throne,  like 
a  capricious  goddess,  signalling  which  shall 
live  and  which  shall  die.  But  in  the  very 
inmost  being  of  each  she  discloses  a  law  of 
life  or  death.  If  an  animal  dies,  its  death 
is  the  natural  culmination  of  its  own  past, 


SURVIVAL   OF  THE   FITTEST     103 

of  tendencies,  proclivities,  and  processes 
already  at  work  within ;  if  it  lives,  its  sur- 
vival is  the  direct  result  of  what  it  at  the 
moment  is.  If  death  is,  in  such  cases,  in 
any  sense  a  judgment,  it  is  a  judgment 
solely  on  unfitness.  And  if  in  dissolution 
the  sentence  of  a  judge  is  being  carried  out, 
it  is  not  by  an  external  operation,  but  by  an 
inward  process.  And  so  with  man.  It  is 
not  necessary  that  he  should  be  judged  from 
without;  he  will  be  judged  from  within. 
He  is  his  own  judge. 

No  witnesses  need  be  called  to  give  their 
evidence ;  the  witnesses  are  himself.  No 
gaolers  need  be  told  off  to  watch  him ;  he 
cannot  run  away  from  himself.  No  external 
court  need  formulate  the  case  against  him ; 
his  own  past  has  done  it,  his  own  past  is  it. 
No  Judge  need  pronounce  sentence  at  a 
Last  Day;  as  he  stands  there  to-day,  he 
has  sentenced  himself,  —  as  he  stands  there, 
he  is  prisoner,  gaoler,  court,  witnesses,  all 
in  one,  all  the  past  collected  and  focussed 
in  his  present,  all  the  present  defining  and 
determining  the  unknown,  but  not  unantici- 


104     SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST 

pated,  future.  As  in  the  past  evolution  of 
the  earth  the  nebulous  gases  combined  in 
the  order  of  their  affinities  and  arranged 
themselves  in  the  order  of  their  densities, 
so  in  the  future  evolution  will  each  go  to 
his  own,  living  on  in  terms  of  his  corre- 
spondences, in  the  order  determined  by  his 
spiritual  affinities. 

This  principle  of  judgment  pervades  with 
its  invisible  presence  the  whole  of  nature. 
Every  plant,  insect,  animal,  man  —  man  phy- 
sical, mental,  moral,  spiritual  —  is  daily  and 
hourly  on  trial.  This  court  is  never  opened 
and  never  closed.  It  is  a  vast,  mysterious, 
self-acting  organisation,  ramifying  through 
the  whole  of  nature,  and,  without  resistance 
or  appeal,  each  living  thing  obeys  its 
verdict. 

But,  in  the  case  of  an  organism,  what  is  it 
that  betrays  the  insufficiency  of  its  corre- 
spondences ?  It  is  the  presentation  to  it  of 
the  new  environment.  So  long  as  the  fish 
lives  in  the  stream,  it  will  neither  feel  nor 
exhibit  any  want  of  adaptation  to  other  sur- 
roundings. But  when  the  stream  runs  dry  ? 


SURVIVAL   OF  THE   FITTEST     105 

So  long  as  the  swallow  lives  in  the  English 
climate,  its  joyful  existence  is  complete.  But 
when  the  English  summer  wanes  and  the 
chills  of  winter  come  ?  So  long  as  man  lives 
on  in  the  environment  of  this  present  world, 
his  correspondences,  or  some  of  them,  are 
satisfied.  But  when  this  present  world  is 
done  ?  Then  is  the  great  trial.  Then  is  the 
sifting  time.  Then  is  the  Judgment  Day. 
Then  his  sufficiency  or  insufficiency  is  finally 
betrayed.  In  presence  of  the  new  environ- 
ment—  not  by  any  book  opened,  word 
spoken,  past  recalled  —  in  the  mere  presence 
of  it,  he  is  made  manifest.  This  reflex  in- 
fluence of  environment  has  been  a  common- 
place with  theology  from  the  beginning.  It 
is  remarkable  how  full  revelation  is  of  this 
still  future  truth  —  remarkable  also  that, 
being  a  thing  to  come,  nature  should  so  an- 
ticipate and  confirm  it.  No  thought  is  more 
frequent  or  more  solemn  in  the  Biblical  ac- 
counts of  the  last  things  than  that  at  the 
appearing  of  Christ  a  mighty  change  will 
sweep  over  the  moral  world  —  a  sudden 
revolution  in  men's  opinions  —  a  swift  re- 


io6     SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST 

versal  of  all  human  judgments.  And  this  is 
not  an  unlooked-for  crisis.  It  is  the  natural 
effect  of  the  new  environment  —  or  of  the 
sudden  prominence  of  the  new  environment 
—  upon  organisms  well  or  ill  prepared  to  live 
in  it.  Hence  it  is  not  only  that  in  this 
Presence  the  secrets  of  all  hearts  shall  be 
revealed,  nor  that  human  lives  projected 
against  His  will  henceforth  and  evermore  ap- 
pear in  colours  black  as  hell.  But  it  will  be 
that  vital  relations  will  manifest  themselves 
in  the  case  of  every  man ;  his  correspon- 
dences will  continue,  or  come  short.  All 
that  he  is,  the  little  that  he  is,  all  that  he  is 
fit  for,  all  that  he  is  not  fit  for,  will  be  re- 
vealed. In  terms  of  these,  in  himself,  and  at 
a  glance,  he  will  know  whether  he  is  to  live 
or  die.  With  his  own  eyes  he  will  see  the 
great  gulf  fixed  ;  with  his  own  reason  he  will 
see  why  it  cannot  be  crossed. 

"  The  appearing  of  Christ,"  says  Van 
Oosterzee,  "  brings  about  separation  (/c/auris) 
between  the  one  who  has  the  Son  and  the 
one  who  has  Him  not ;  or,  rather,  the  differ- 
ence, already  present,  unseen,  is  in  conse- 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE   FITTEST     107 

quence  of  His  coming  and  His  work,  brought 
to  light.  Thus  the  Christ  becomes  neces- 
sarily Judge,  even  where  He  desires  to  be 
Saviour."1  And  to  the  same  effect  Paul, 
"  For  we  must  all  be  made  manifest  before 
the  Judgment-seat  of  Christ."  This  is  that 
being  "  weighed  in  the  balance  "  in  which 
some  shall  be  "found  wanting."  This  is 
what  Paul  foresaw  when  he  said,  "  We  must 
all  be  made  manifest  before  the  Judgment- 
seat  of  Christ." 

This,  again,  is  not  peculiar  to  Christianity 
or  to  science,  but  universal  law.  The  mo- 
ment I  go  to  a  high-class  concert,  in  the 
matter  of  musical  taste  I  am  judged.  My 
musical  soul,  or  soullessness,  is  instantly 
made  manifest.  The  moment  I  enter  a 
picture  gallery  I  am  judged.  My  corre- 
spondences are  or  are  not.  I  am  weighed 
in  the  balances.  That  day  declares  it. 

What  man  is,  what  God  is  —  these  are  the 
materials  for  the  anticipation  of  judgment. 
They  are  in  each  man's  hands,  and  in  terms 
of  'them  he  can  here  and  now  decide.  To 

1  "  Theology  of  the  New  Testament,"  fourth  ed.  p.  348. 


i o8     SURVIVAL  OF  THE   FITTEST 

no  man,  surely,  is  it  ever  given  to  draw  aside 
the  veil  and  forecast  the  future  for  another. 
Personal  to  the  individual,  the  possession  of 
the  appropriate  correspondences  —  the  adap- 
tation to  the  Divine  is  truly  known  to  one- 
self alone.  And  we  are  therefore  warned  by 
the  New  Testament:  "Judge  nothing  before 
the  time,  'until  the  Lord  come,'  who  both 
will  bring  to  light  the  hidden  things  of  dark- 
ness, and  will  make  manifest  the  counsels  of 
the  heart."  But  so  far  from  precluding  a 
judgment  of  our  own  upon  ourselves,  the 
very  inability  of  our  neighbour,  the  impo- 
tence to  help  of  those  who  know  and  love  us 
best,  the  isolation  and  solitude  in  which  we 
must  settle  this  question  of  life  and  death, 
create  a  warrant  for  self-examination  such  as 
no  serious  man  will  allow  himself  to  evade. 
"  Examine  yourselves,"  says  Paul,  "  whether 
ye  be  in  the  faith  ;  prove  your  own  selves." 
And  again,  "  Make  your  calling  and  election 

sure." 

•  •  .  •  • 

Mr.  Darwin  tells  us  that  the  object  of  nat- 
ural selection  —  the  object  of  the  fittest  sur- 


SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST     109 

viving  —  is  "  the  improvement  of  organisms." 
It  is  the  means  by  which  nature  shows  her 
appreciation,  not  of  fitness  alone,  but  of  fit- 
ness in  the  direction  of  advancement.  It  is 
her  splendid  effort  to  ennoble  life,  to  exalt 
and  purify  creation,  to  bring  all  organisms  to 
an  ever-increasing  perfectness  and  complex- 
ity, to  carry  on  the  evolution  of  the  world  to 
higher  and  higher  beauty,  usefulness,  and 
efficacy.  How  keen  her  desire  to  compass 
this  great  end,  how  enormous  the  value  she 
sets  on  the  result,  may  be  feebly  inferred 
from  the  terrible  price  she  is  prepared  to 
pay  for  it.  If  nature  is  in  earnest  about  one 
thing,  it  is  quality.  To  this  end  all  her 
labour  tends  ;  she  works,  and  waits  ;  she  de- 
stroys, and  re-creates.  And  surely  nothing 
is  more  significant  for  religion,  nothing 
could  more  eloquently  express  its  own  deep- 
est aim  for  the  world,  than  this  mighty  grav- 
itation of  all  in  nature  towards  fitness, 
wholeness,  perfectness.  Even  Lamarck 
finds  himself  so  impressed  by  the  silent  wit- 
nesses around  him  to  the  great  ascent  of  life 
as  to  believe  in  "  an  innate  and  inevitable 


no     SURVIVAL   OF  THE   FITTEST 

tendency  towards  perfection  in   all  organic 
beings." 

But  it  is  to  the  various  eschatological  the- 
ories of  theology  that  its  voice  most  distinctly 
speaks.  Has  Antinomianism  no  tacit  fol- 
lowing in  the  modern  Church  ?  Let  those 
who  have  to  meet  this  subtle  and  monstrous 
and  unaccountable  perversion  explain  the 
meaning  and  press  home  the  necessity  of 
adaptation  to  environment.  Let  it  be  shown 
that  fitness  to  survive  is  tested,  not  by  pro- 
fession, but  by  experiment.  How  easily  in 
the  theological  forms  may  faith  be  a  corre- 
spondence, a  communion,  a  living  bond  with 
a  living  Christ,  or  (it  may  be)  a  mere  belief, 
a  barren  formula,  a  name  to  live.  There  is 
an  ecclesiastical  Christ  and  a  living  Christ ; 
there  is  a  historical  Christ  and  a  risen 
Christ;  there  is  a  theological  Christ  and  a 
personal  Christ.  Is  it  not  clear,  alike  from 
reason,  from  nature,  and  from  revelation  that 
only  by  contact  —  immediate,  personal,  liv- 
ing—  with  a  living,  present  Christ  the  eter- 
nal life  can  be  a  root  in  the  heart  of  man  ? 
We  turn  to  yet  another  tendency  of  the 


SURVIVAL   OF  THE   FITTEST     in 

time.  More  and  more  the  doctrines  of  Uni- 
versalism  seem  to  spread. 

Where,  then,  it  may  be  asked,  is  mercy? 
The  answer  is  —  (i)  It  will  be  seen  presently 
that  the  whole  scheme  is  established  only  in 
mercy ;  but  (2)  even  mercy  has  its  laws. 
The  object  of  mercy  can  never  be  to  "  save  " 
the  unfit,  i.  e.,  to  save  the  unadapted,  which  is 
inconceivable  and  impossible.  Mercy  can 
make  the  unfit  fit ;  it  has  a  vast  machinery 
for  this  one  purpose.  That  is  its  work,  its 
line,  the  only  line  it  can  take.  To  "  fit  "  the 
unfit  is  a  possibility,  to  "  save  "  them  being 
unfit,  to  sentence  them  unfit  in  either  rela- 
tion to  a  heaven  or  a  hell  is  impossible. 
The  only  conceivable  ways  to  save  a  fish 
tossed  on  the  rocks  by  a  billow  are  to  sud- 
denly supply  it  with  a  lung,  which  is  impos- 
sible, or  to  turn  it  back  into  its  own  element. 
On  similar  principles  the  unfit  in  relation  to 
God  cannot  be  saved,  the  fit  can  by  no  pos- 
sibility be  lost. 

As  the  evangelist  said  of  Emerson,  "  Emer- 
son was  one  of  the  most  beautiful  souls  I  ever 
knew.  There  is  something  wrong  with  his 


ii2     SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST 

machinery  somewhere,  but  I   do   not  know 
what  it  is,  for  I  never  heard  it  jar.     He  can- 
not be  lost,  for  if  he  went  to  hell,  the  devil 
would  not  know  what  to  do  with  him." 
•  .  •  •  • 

But  we  must  shape  this  many-sided  in- 
quiry to  a  close. 

One  other  aspect  of  this  Truth  demands 
a  passing  notice  before  we  close.  Till  now 
we  have  discussed  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
only  as  it  affects  the  individual.  This  is  a 
small  part  of  the  truth.  No  law  is  of  private 
interpretation.  How  calmly  we,  as  individ- 
uals, appropriate  the  laws  of  God,  focussing 
all  in  our  own  little  world  —  as  if  they  were 
only  for  ourselves ;  as  if  they  were  not  the 
parallel  of  latitude  of  a  larger  universe,  the 
revelation  of  the  method  of  God's  whole 
purposes  and  government.  What  is  each 
man  but  one  little  thread  in  the  loom  of 
God  ?  The  great  wheels  revolve,  the  shuttle 
flies,  not  for  the  thread  but  for  the  web; 
not  for  the  web  alone,  but  for  the  pattern 
on  the  web ;  not  for  the  pattern  on  the  web, 
but  for  One,  the  Designer,  who  makes  loom 


SURVIVAL  OF   THE   FITTEST     113 

and  web  and  pattern  for  Himself.  To  know 
why  the  loom  is  there,  and  why  the  shuttle 
moves,  and  why  the  threads  are  in  this  place 
or  in  that,  or  why  they  are  there  at  all,  we 
must  look  beyond  ourselves,  discover  if  we 
may  the  hidden  Workman's  purpose,  and 
see  in  the  half-finished  design  the  prophecy 
of  some  final  harmony. 

Revelation  is  too  prophetic  of  the  End, 
and  creation  is  too  full  of  God  and  of  His 
plans  to  leave  man  without  a  clue  to  the 
larger  meanings  of  the  natural  laws.  In  the 
natural  world  the  function  of  the  law  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest  is  to  produce  fitness — 
to  make  a  select  world  (a  cosmos,  beautiful, 
harmonious)  perfect.  So  is  it  in  the  spirit- 
ual world.  There  its  function  will  surely 
be  to  secure  and  guarantee  the  quality  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God. 

If  it  is  necessary  that  there  should  be  a 
heaven,  it  is  necessary  that  it  should  be  kept 
heavenly.  This  is  that  law  which  now  and 
evermore  keeps  heaven  pure.  It  has  more 
than  a  personal  application ;  it  is  a  chief 
factor  in  the  great  evolution,  one  of  the 


ii4    SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST 

main  instruments  by  which  nature  passes 
on  to  these  nobler  and  nobler  developments 
in  which  all  changes,  forces,  and  movements 
in  nature  appear  to  be  culminating.  So  far 
as  science  can  read  the  secret  will  and  pur- 
pose of  creation,  it  is  this,  that  Nature  is 
gravitating  with  infinite  patience  and  sure- 
ness  towards  perfection. 

The  object  of  the  Law  of  the  Survival  of 
the  Fittest  is  to  produce  fitness.  And  this 
is  the  object  of  Judgment  —  to  produce  fit- 
ness here  by  the  terror  of  its  law  hereafter, 
to  separate  the  chaff  from  the  wheat,  yet 
not  for  the  sake  of  punishing  the  chaff  only 
for  the  sake  of  preserving  the  wheat.  This 
is  the  great  law  whose  secret  operations 
tend  to  make  a  select  world.  It  is  the 
guarantee  of  the  quality  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God. 

Even  now,  in  some  poor  way,  we  seem  to 
see  how  God  proceeds  to  secure  His  end. 
Our  little  world  has  had  its  own  life-history. 
In  the  life-history  of  this  one  world  we  can 
dimly  make  out,  not  only  the  direction,  but 
the  method  of  progress,  for  every  feature  in 


SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST     115 

its  marvellous  evolution  is  a  further  vision 
of  things  to  come.  Look  into  this  past  for 
a  moment,  observe  God's  way  of  producing 
earth  from  chaos,  and  say  whether  no  clue 
lies  here  to  that  further  evolution  of  heaven 
from  earth. 


The  Third 
Kingdom 


The   Third   Kingdom 

[The  introductory  page  of  the  MS.,  which  is  lost,  doubt- 
less contained  a  reference  to  a  division  into  Inorganic  or 
First  Kingdom,  Organic  or  Second,  and  Spiritual  or  Third.] 

I  MAY  be  permitted  to  summarise  briefly 
the  teaching  of  the  Sacred  Books  on 
the  central  subject  of  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
and  to  point  it,  as  occasion  may  offer,  with 
reference  to  the  present  inquiry. 

The  Kingdom  of  God  the  Central  Idea  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments 

That  God  was  preparing  out  of  the 
Second  Kingdom  a  people  for  Himself  is  the 
most  prominent  fact  of  ancient  history. 
For  centuries  the  children  of  Israel  were  so 
impressed  with  this  belief  that  they  dared 
not,  like  other  nations,  permit  themselves 
even  to  own  an  earthly  king.  With  Jehovah 


120         THE   THIRD   KINGDOM 

to  defend  their  case,  with  the  King  of  kings 
to  define  and  carry  out  their  cause,  genera- 
tion after  generation  held  out  against  the 
temptation  to  create  a  human  monarchy,  and 
handed  down  unsoiled  to  the  late  age  of  the 
Captivity  their  theocratic  faith.  "  The  dom- 
inating thought  of  the  Old  Testament"  to 
quote  the  words  of  Keim,  "  is  that  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  upon  earth.  God  is  the 
God,  the  Lord,  the  King  of  the  whole  earth ; 
but  from  among  all  the  nations  He  has 
chosen  Israel  to  be  His  peculiar  possession, 
His  servants,  His  people,  His  first-born, 
His  priestly  kingdom.  God  is  Israel's  King, 
and  rules  as  King.  God  fulfils  His  regal 
office  by  spiritually  and  physically  bringing 
the  nation  into  existence;  by  protecting, 
regulating,  and  guiding  it  with  His  blessings 
and  His  chastisements.  He  does  all  this, 
sometimes  by  His  immediate  presence,  and 
sometimes  through  the  agency  of  His 
inspired  organs  —  lawgivers  and  generals, 
priests  and  prophets,  and  finally  kings,  who, 
in  fact,  are  only  viceroys.  This  kingdom 
has,  however,  its  limits;  the  nations  without 


THE  THIRD   KINGDOM  121 

do  not  obey,  they  make  attacks  upon  the 
people  of  God,  and  the  people  of  God 
sin  against  themselves  and  against  their 
King."1 

How  a  thousand  years  before  the  birth  of 
Christ  the  longing  rose  for  the  Kingdom  of 
God  in  a  more  perfect  form,  for  a  Kingdom 
that  should  conquer  and  rule  the  nations  and 
establish  righteousness  and  peace  on  earth ; 
how,  fostered  by  the  startling  assurances  of 
Daniel,  the  desire  was  kept  alive  through 
ages  of  oppression,  and  burned  only  the 
more  clearly  after  prolonged  disappointment ; 
how  centuries  after  the  voice  of  prophecy 
was  silent  in  their  land,  when  the  Forerunner 
raised  his  standard  in  the  wilderness,  the  old 
hope,  deeper  still  in  their  hearts  than  any 
thought  of  God  or  man,  uttered  itself  again 
in  an  almost  national  response  to  the  Bap- 
tist's message  —  these  points  have  but  to  be 
named  to  convince  us  of  the  thrilling  reality 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  to  the  ancient  Jew- 
ish Church. 

To  point  out  the  development  of  the  con- 

1  Keim's  "  Jesus  of  Nazara,"  vol.  iii.  p.  43. 


122          THE   THIRD   KINGDOM 

ception  as  we  come  down  to  New  Testa- 
ment times  is  all  but  superfluous.  At  the 
double  risk  of  appearing  to  the  world  as  an 
imitator  of  John,  and  to  the  Roman  as 
sharing  with  the  Baptist  the  responsibilities 
of  political  revolution,  Jesus  accepted  the 
watchword  of  the  hour,  and  deliberately 
announced  Himself  as  the  King  of  the 
promised  Kingdom.  How  He  gathered 
about  Him  the  first  few  subjects,  and  in  the 
face  of  laughter  and  blasphemy  assumed  the 
Sovereignty  of  the  miniature  State,  framing 
a  Constitution  for  it  as  far-reaching  and  pro- 
found as  if  it  were  already  a  great  nation,  is 
a  plain  fact  of  history.  And  as  one  follows 
His  life  throughout,  it  is  patent  to  the  most 
casual  reader  of  the  Gospel  narratives  that 
His  one  idea  was  to  found  on  earth  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven.  In  Matthew  alone 
the  expressions  "  Kingdom  of  Heaven  "  and 
"  Kingdom  of  God  "  occur  forty-five  times ; 
and  generally  the  theme  seems  never  to  have 
been  absent  for  a  single  hour  from  the 
thoughts  of  Jesus  during  His  earthly  min- 
istry. "  In  the  contemplation  of  the  doctrine 


THE  THIRD   KINGDOM  123 

of  the  Lord,"  says  Van  Oosterzee,  "  accord- 
ing to  the  Synoptics,  we  must  proceed  from 
the  foundation-thought  by  which,  above  all 
others,  it  is  ruled.  It  is  that  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God."  So  Reuss,  "  L'idee  fondamentale 
qui  se  reproduit  a  chaque  instant  dans  1'en- 
seignement  de  Jesus,  est  celle  du  royaume 
de  Dieu." l 

Were  an  evolutionist  asked  to  formulate 
the  fundamental  idea  of  nature,  he  would 
reply,  in  the  light  of  all  modern  philosophy 
and  science,  The  Idea  of  the  Kingdom.  All 
nature,  he  would  say,  is  gravitating  towards 
a  nobler  order  of  things.  The  vision  of  the 
past  presents  man  with  a  grand  and  har- 
monious picture  of  the  Ascent  of  Life. 
Kingdom  is  seen  to  be  rising  above  kingdom. 
And  yet  withal  the  apex  of  the  pyramid  is 
still  concealed.  The  perfect  is  not  yet  come. 
The  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth, 
waiting  for  the  redemption  of  the  creature. 
Scarce  less  audible  is  the  prophecy  of  nature 

1  See  further  Hausrath,  "  New  Testament  Times,"  vol. 
ii. ;  Keim,  "Jesus  of  Nazara,"  vol.  Hi. ;  also  Neander,  Hess, 
and  especially  the  earlier  chapters  of  "  Ecce  Homo." 


124         THE   THIRD   KINGDOM 

than  the  voice  of  Old  Testament  Scripture 
as  to  the  coming  of  the  world's  Redeemer. 
And  Science,  like  the  Forerunner  of  the 
Messiah,  has  prepared  the  way  of  the  Lord. 

THE  OBJECT  OF  THE  THIRD  KINGDOM 

What  is  the  ultimate  purpose  of  God  in 
the  further  evolution  of  man  can  only  be 
dimly  discerned.  With  words,  it  is  true,  we 
can  fill  in  logically  the  framework  of  the 
future ;  but  to  the  imagination,  beyond  a  cer- 
tain point,  these  words  become  colourless 
symbols  of  a  reality  which  man  in  this  life 
can  never  grasp.  Still  it  is  not  denied  us  to 
see  a  little  way  into  the  Third  Kingdom,  and 
we  may  attempt  at  least  a  provisional  answer 
to  this  question.  What  does  the  Kingdom 
of  God  propose  to  do  for  mankind  ? 

The  form  of  the  question  which  chiefly  in- 
terests us  in  the  present  inquiry  is,  Does  the 
Kingdom  of  God  propose  to  do  anything 
abnormal,  extravagant,  or  unintelligible  ? 
Is  it  a  new  and  unrelated  effect  that  is  to 
be  wrought  on  the  subjects  of  this  Kingdom, 


THE   THIRD   KINGDOM  125 

or  is  it  something  still  consistently  in  line 
with  continuity  ?  Certainly  if  it  could  be 
shown  that  the  aim  of  the  Third  Kingdom 
was  in  harmony  with  all  that  has  gone  be- 
fore, it  would  go  a  long  way  to  remove  any 
prejudice  that  may  exist  against  it  on  the 
ground  of  what  men  call  its  unnaturalness 
and  "  other-worldliness." 

The  simplest  method  of  testing  the  natu- 
ralness of  the  object  of  the  Third  Kingdom 
is  to  refer  to  the  aim  of  the  Second.  What 
is  it  that  serious  men  propose  to  themselves 
as  the  object  of  life?  Is  there  not  some- 
thing that  all  have  willed  to  achieve  —  a 
summum  bonum  —  a  chief  end  of  man  ? 
These,  for  ages,  have  been  the  questions 
of  philosophy.  The  greatest  and  wisest 
among  mankind  have  studied  this  problem. 
And  it  would  be  idle  to  deny  that  their 
labours  have  achieved  at  least  a  general 
result.  Without  referring  to  any  of  the 
specific  plans  of  life  proposed  by  different 
schools,  it  will  sufficiently  summarise  the 
conclusion  of  all  to  say  that  the  highest 
aims  of  mankind  are  connected  with  the 


126          THE   THIRD   KINGDOM 

moral  development  of  the  race.  Whatever 
methods  various  philosophies  have  pointed 
out  in  order  to  attain  this  end,  and  what- 
ever shades  of  difference  exist  as  to  the  end 
itself,  there  is  no  debate  as  to  this  general 
result.  There  is  no  question  likewise,  and 
this  is  an  important  consideration,  that  the 
ideal  of  philosophy  has  never  yet  been 
reached.  With  greater  or  less  hope  some 
philosophic  schools  still  expect  a  future  suc- 
cess to  justify  the  principles  they  teach ; 
others  found  wanting  after  fair  trial  have 
already  withdrawn  from  the  field.  Still  a 
unanimous  consensus  among  men  that  the 
highest  development  of  the  race  is  the 
summum  bonum  is  a  fact  too  significant  to 
be  ignored.  And  any  new  applicant  for 
favour  might  be  expected  beforehand  to 
enter  the  field  with  this  same  general  aim 
in  spite  of  the  warnings  of  those  who  have 
failed.  Any  other  aim  would  be  unnatural. 
Now  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  aim  of  Chris- 
tianity, in  its  general  direction,  is  the  aim 
of  all  philosophy.  Christianity  fell  naturally 
into  the  stream  of  evolution  which  was 


THE   THIRD    KINGDOM  127 

carrying  the  world  through  kingdom  after 
kingdom  to  a  high  and  perfect  development. 
Its  idea  of  development  was  immeasurably 
loftier  than  that  of  philosophy,  and  the 
means  for  carrying  out  the  process  were 
altogether  different ;  but  the  goal  in  either 
case,  though  not  the  same,  lay  in  the  same 
general  line.  I  have  defined  the  aim  of 
philosophy  to  be  the  moral  development  of 
the  race.  When  it  is  said,  however,  that 
this  is  also  the  aim  of  Christianity  we  must 
attach  a  higher  significance  to  the  term 
moral.  Morality  is  a  word  of  the  Second 
Kingdom.  In  the  Third  we  look  for  its 
evolution.  We  shall  still  recognise  the  old 
quality,  but  it  will  really  exist  in  a  form  so 
greatly  developed  that  we  may  be  justified 
in  substituting  for  morality  the  word  spirit- 
uality. At  the  same  time  it  must  again  be 
repeated  that  the  development  of  the  spirit- 
ual from  the  natural  man  is  not  a  case  of 
simple  evolution.  The  natural  character 
does  not  simply  grow  better  and  better  until 
a  pitch  of  excellence  is  reached  such  as 
finally  deserves  the  distinguishing  name  of 


128          THE   THIRD   KINGDOM 

spirituality.  Spirituality  and  morality  differ 
qualitatively  as  well  as  quantitatively.  The 
natural  development  can  never  pass  the  bar- 
rier separating  the  Second  from  the  Third 
Kingdom.  The  transition  is  secured,  just  as 
in  the  case  of  atoms  passing  from  the  First 
to  the  Second  Kingdom,  by  means  of  some- 
thing not  inherent  in  the  lower  Kingdom 
but  communicated  ab  extra. 

But  while  giving  the  fullest  prominence  to 
this  cardinal  fact  that  the  spiritual  is  not  a 
mere  natural  development  of  the  natural,  it 
is  no  less  necessary  to  point  out,  although  at 
first  sight  it  seems  a  paradox,  that  the  spirit- 
ual character  is  still  a  development  of  the 
natural.  The  first  object  of  the  Third  King- 
dom cannot,  without  misconception,  be  said 
to  be  the  creating  merely  of  a  spiritual  char- 
acter. Its  first  work  is  to  make  what  would 
be  called  a  perfect  natural  character.  It  does 
not  leave  the  Second  Kingdom  in  a  raw,  un- 
finished state,  and,  regardless  of  the  natural 
man,  proceed  to  start  afresh  with  a  new  set 
of  organisms  developing  under  a  new  regime. 
Its  first  business  is  to  complete  the  old.  It 


THE   THIRD   KINGDOM  129 

takes  up  a  human  life  at  the  point  where  the 
natural  world  has  left  it  and  carries  it  on  to 
perfection.  There  is,  it  is  true,  a  new  crea- 
ture born  within  the  natural  man.  And  in 
this  sense  there  is  a  new  creation  and  a  new 
departure.  But  the  first  work  of  the  new 
nature  is  to  operate  on  the  old  and  do  for  it 
what  it  failed  to  do  for  itself.  Thus  the  aim 
of  the  spiritual  Kingdom  in  the  first  instance 
is  to  perfect  the  natural.  The  first  object  of 
Christianity  is  to  make  men.  So  far  from 
being  a  dehumanising  process,  it  alone  cre- 
ates the  true  humanity.  For  the  Third 
Kingdom  alone  possesses  the  true  ideal, 
and  alone  contains  the  energies  effectually 
to  overpower  those  forces  of  sin  which  pre- 
vent men  from  ever  becoming  men. 

I  purposely  refrain  from  making  more 
than  the  most  meagre  allusion  to  the  aims  of 
the  spiritual  world,  for  the  subject  does  not 
come  directly  within  the  biological  province. 
Words  at  all  times  fail,  however,  to  express 
the  magnificence  of  the  scheme  of  Christian- 
ity. For  the  past  its  provision  is  so  com- 
plete, for  the  present  so  wonderful,  for  the 

9 


130         THE   THIRD   KINGDOM 

future  so  glorious  that  the  more  one  exer- 
cises his  mind  upon  the  religion  of  Jesus 
Christ  the  more  is  he  impressed  with  its 
wisdom,  magnificence,  and  thorough  practi- 
cal adaptation  to  every  need  and  wish  of 
man.  The  whole  conception  of  the  Re- 
demption of  the  world,  the  amazing  series  of 
events  projected  in  order  to  it,  the  possibility 
opened  to  man  of  a  pure  life  and  a  disinter- 
ested deed,  the  promise  of  having  all  the 
haunting  problems  of  life  and  time,  all  the 
soul's  deep  difficulties  concerning  the  uni- 
verse and  the  eternal  finally  solved  —  these 
alone  mark  out  the  Third  Kingdom  as  a 
creation  of  the  Most  High.  Nothing  could 
be  more  exquisite  than  the  programme  of 
Christianity  penned  by  Isaiah  centuries  be- 
fore the  Founder  of  the  Kingdom  was  born 
in  Bethlehem.  One  would  come 
"  To  preach  good  tidings  to  the  meek ; 

To  bind  up  the  broken-hearted ; 

To  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives ; 

To  comfort  all  that  mourn ; 

To  give  unto  them  beauty  for  ashes, 

The  oil  of  joy  for  mourning, 


-  /; 


THE  THIRD   KINGDOM  131 

The  garment  of  praise  for  the  spirit  of 
heaviness ; 

That  they  might  be  called  trees  of  righte- 
ousness, the  planting  of  the  Lord, 

That  He  might  be  glorified." J 

Side  by  side  with  these  words  let  him  who 
would  rate  the  claims  of  the  Third  Kingdom 
on  his  acceptance — unobtrusive  claims  which 
have  always  depended  most  on  a  mute  appeal 
to  their  inherent  dignity  and  grace  —  read 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  And  if  he  would 
understand  the  aspirations  of  the  Kingdom 
he  will  find  the  seven  deepest  thoughts  of  his 
own  heart  at  its  purest  moments  reflected  in 
the  seven  petitions  of  the  Lord's  Prayer. 

If  that  programme  is  not  a  satire  on  the 
gospels  of  humanity,  if  these  beatitudes  are 
not  a  fiction,  if  the  Lord's  Prayer  is  not  the 
expression  of  a  need  that  is  rarely  felt  and 
never  gratified,  they  have  a  claim  upon  man- 
kind more  vitally  real  than  anything  else  in 
the  world.  If  there  be  a  Kingdom  of  God, 
that  programme,  that  Sermon  and  that  Prayer 
are  worthy  of  it.  And  if  they  be  but  a  dream, 

1  Isaiah  Ixi.  1-3. 


132          THE   THIRD    KINGDOM 

I  know  not  how  we  shall  account  for  such  a 
dream. 

While  the  design  of  the  Third  Kingdom 
coincides  somewhat  with  the  purpose  of 
Moral  Philosophy,  its  apparatus  and  methods 
are  widely  different.  And  they  are  different 
mainly  in  respect  of  two  things  already  men- 
tioned. Christianity  provides  an  ideal  which 
is  the  highest  possible,  and  equips  the  sub- 
jects of  the  Kingdom  with  powers  in  every 
way  adequate  to  realise  that  ideal.  The 
problems  connected  with  the  ideal  will  be 
referred  to  again,  but  the  question  of  the 
powers  of  the  spiritual  Kingdom  may  now 
be  dealt  with  under  a  separate  head. 

THE  POWERS  OF  THE  THIRD  KINGDOM 

The  fundamental  difference  between  the 
Second  and  Third  Kingdoms  consists  in 
what,  for  want  of  a  better  name,  may  be 
called  their  Energies.  The  difference  of 
phenomena  entirely  depends  on  this  —  the 
difference,  for  example,  between  morality 
and  spirituality.  Philosophy  may  easily 
borrow  the  ideal  from  Christianity ;  to  some 


THE   THIRD   KINGDOM  133 

extent  it  may  attempt  to  introduce  its 
motive,  but  it  utterly  breaks  down  in  the 
practical  application.  And  it  fails  for  want 
of  the  one  thing  which  finally  differentiates 
the  Third  Kingdom  from  the  Second  — 
Life.  Discussing  Christianity  on  the  philo- 
sophical plane  in  a  chapter  of  singular 
insight  and  beauty,  Ecce  Homo,  while  insist- 
ing upon  the  difference  between  Christian- 
ity and  Moral  Philosophy,  fails  withal,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  to  recognise  the  infinite  and 
radical  distinction  between  them,  owing  to 
a  disregard  of  this  unique  quality  of  Life. 
"  Philosophers  had  drawn  their  pupils  from 
the  elite  of  humanity ;  but  Christ  finds  His 
material  among  the  worst  and  meanest,  for 
He  does  not  propose  merely  to  make  the 
good  better,  but  the  bad  good.  And  what 
is  His  machinery  ?  He  says  the  first  step 
towards  good  dispositions  is  for  a  man  to 
form  a  strong  personal  attachment.  Let 
him  first  be  drawn  out  of  himself.  Next, 
let  the  object  of  that  attachment  be  a  person 
of  striking  and  conspicuous  goodness.  To 
worship  such  a  person  will  be  the  best  exer- 


134          THE   THIRD   KINGDOM 

cise  in  virtue  that  he  can  have.  Let  him 
vow  obedience  in  life  and  death  to  such  a 
person ;  let  him  mix  and  live  with  others 
who  have  made  the  same  vow.  He  will 
have  ever  before  his  eyes  an  ideal  of  what 
he  may  himself  become.  His  heart  will  be 
stirred  by  new  feelings,  a  new  world  will 
be  gradually  revealed  to  him,  and,  more  than 
this,  a  new  self  within  his  old  self  will  make 
its  presence  felt,  and  a  change  will  pass  over 
him  which  he  will  feel  it  most  appropriate 
to  call  a  new  birth." 1  The  fatal  objection 
to  this  scheme  is  that  it  begins  at  the  wrong 
end.  Certain  changes  pass  over  a  man's 
character;  he  forms  a  personal  attachment, 
worships  his  ideal,  learns  obedience,  and  all 
this  he  will  "  feel  it  most  appropriate "  to 
call  a  new  birth.  Why  not  begin  with  the 
new  birth  ?  Why  be  guilty,  even  in  appear- 
ance, of  the  scientific  heresy  of  making  Life 
the  result  of  organisation  instead  of  the 
cause  of  it?  The  language  used  certainly 
lends  itself  at  least  to  the  supposition  that 
the  expression  "  new  birth "  is  merely  a 

1  "  Ecce  Homo,"  fourteenth  edition,  p.  92. 


THE   THIRD   KINGDOM  135 

metaphor — an  "appropriate"  term  for  the 
act  after  the  result  has  appeared.  And  the 
criticism  of  Ecce  Homo  on  Christianity  in 
this  respect  is  not  exceptional,  but  repre- 
sentative. The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is 
simply  the  "  Society  of  Jesus,"  or  "  a  religi- 
ous-moral institution"  (Van  Oosterzee),  or 
"a  filial  relation  to  God"  (Hausrath). 

Now,  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  all  this,  but 
it  is  also  a  great  deal  more.  From  the  phil- 
osophical standpoint  no  definitions,  probably, 
could  be  more  exact ;  none  other  even  are 
possible.  But  there  has  been  a  universal 
failure  to  regard  the  whole  subject,  in  the 
first  instance,  as  a  question  of  Biology. 
Even  those  theologies  which  have  recognised 
most  clearly  the  special  factor  of  Life  in 
Christianity  have  still  felt  themselves  insen- 
sibly drawn  to  discuss  the  question  ultimately 
in  terms  of  philosophy.  That  it  is  suscept- 
ible of  philosophic  treatment  is  abundantly 
plain;  but  it  cannot  with  too  much  em- 
phasis be  pointed  out  that,  alike  from  the 
analogies  of  nature  and  from  the  explicit 
declarations  of  its  Founder,  the  Third  King- 


136         THE  THIRD   KINGDOM 

dom  must  be  treated  primarily  as  a  biological 
question.  Christ  affirmed  that  His  first 
object  in  coming  to  men  was  to  give  them 
Life  —  more  abundant  Life.  And  that  He 
meant  literal  Life,  literal  spiritual  Life,  is 
clear  from  the  whole  course  of  His  teaching 
and  acting.  To  impose  a  metaphorical  mean- 
ing on  the  commonest  word  of  the  New 
Testament  is  to  violate  every  canon  of  in- 
terpretation, and  at  the  same  time  to  charge 
the  greatest  of  Teachers  with  persistently 
mystifying  His  hearers  by  an  unusual  use  of 
so  exact  a  vehicle  for  expressing  definite 
thought  as  the  Greek  language,  on  the  most 
momentous  subject  of  which  He  ever  spoke 
—  a  subject,  indeed,  of  life  or  death  to  all 
whom  He  addressed.  It  is  a  canon  of  inter- 
pretation, says  Alford,  that  "  a  figurative 
sense  of  words  is  never  admissible  except 
when  required  by  the  context."  The  con- 
text in  most  cases  is  not  only  directly  un- 
favourable to  the  figurative  meaning,  but  in 
innumerable  cases  Life  is  broadly  contrasted 
with  Death.  In  others,  as  in  the  discourse 
with  Nicodemus,  the  language  used  makes  it 


THE  THIRD   KINGDOM          137 

inconceivable  that  there,  at  least,  the  sym- 
bolical meaning  is  implied.  "  Ye  must  be 
born  again,"  said  Jesus  to  the  Rabbi.  And 
that  the  words  were  taken  literally  is  appar- 
ent from  the  answer :  "  How  can  a  man  be 
born  when  he  is  old  ?  Can  he  enter  a  second 
time  into  his  mother's  womb  and  be  born  ?  " 
While  undeceiving  His  pupil  as  to  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  term  Life  in  its  natural 
organic  sense,  Christ  continues  to  insist 
withal  that  it  is  nevertheless  Life  —  a  deeper 
and  spiritual  Life,  a  Life  mysteriously  entering 
into  the  soul  as  by  a  breath  from  God.  "  Ex- 
cept a  man  be  born  of  water  and  of  the  Spirit, 
he  cannot  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  God. .  . . 
That  which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh,  and 
that  which  is  born  of  the  spirit  is  spirit"3 

To  pass  from  Christ's  words  to  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Apostles,  we  find  that  without 
exception  they  have  accepted  the  term  in  its 
simple,  literal  sense.  Reuss  defines  the 
Apostolic  belief,  as  is  his  wont,  with  rigid  im- 
partiality when  he  discovers  in  the  Apostles' 
conception  of  Life,  first,  "  the  idea  of  a  real 

1  John  iii. 


138          THE  THIRD   KINGDOM 

existence,  an  existence  such  as  is  proper  to 
God  and  to  the  Word ;  an  imperishable  ex- 
istence—  that  is  to  say,  not  subject  to  the 
vicissitudes  and  imperfections  of  the  finite 
world.  This  primary  idea  is  repeatedly  ex- 
pressed, at  least  in  a  negative  form ;  it  leads 
to  a  doctrine  of  immortality,  or,  to  speak 
more  correctly,  of  life,  far  surpassing  any  that 
had  been  expressed  in  the  formulas  of  the 
current  philosophy  or  theology,  and  resting 
upon  premises  and  conceptions  altogether 
different.  In  fact,  it  can  dispense  both  with 
the  philosophical  thesis  of  the  immateriality 
or  indestructibility  of  the  human  soul,  and 
with  the  theological  thesis  of  a  miraculous 
corporeal  reconstruction  of  our  person : 
theses,  the  first  of  which  is  altogether  foreign 
to  the  religion  of  the  Bible,  and  the  second 
absolutely  opposed  to  reason."  Second,  "  the 
idea  of  life,  as  it  is  conceived  in  this  system, 
implies  the  idea  of  a  power,  an  operation,  a 
communication,  since  this  life  no  longer  re- 
mains, so  to  speak,  latent  or  passive  in  God 
and  in  the  Word,  but  through  them  reaches 
the  believer.  It  is  not  a  neutral,  somnolent 


THE   THIRD   KINGDOM          139 

thing ;  it  is  not  a  plant  without  fruit ;  it  is  a 
germ  which  is  to  find  fullest  development." J 
The  sum  of  New  Testament  doctrine  is 
that  there  is  an  immediate  action  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  on  the  souls  of  men.  In  the 
New  Testament  alone  the  Spirit  is  referred 
to  nearly  three  hundred  times.  And  the 
one  word  with  which  He  is  constantly  asso- 
ciated is  Power.  If  we  are  asked  to  define 
more  clearly  what  is  meant  by  this  Power 
we  hand  over  the  difficulty  to  science.  When 
science  can  define  Life  and  Force  we  may 
hope  for  further  clearness  on  the  nature  and 
action  of  the  Spiritual  Powers.  At  the  same 
time  we  are  forewarned  that  with  our  present 
faculties  we  can  never  pass  far  beyond  the 
threshold  of  these  hidden  things.  Their 
very  power  of  evading  the  senses  is  the  mys- 
terious token  of  their  spirituality.  It  is  the 
test  of  the  Spirit  that  thou  canst  not  tell 
whence  it  cometh  or  whither  it  goeth.  If  we 
could  tell,  if  we  could  trace  it  naturally  to  its 
source,  if  we  could  account  for  its  operations 

1  Reuss,  "  History  of  Christian  Theology  in  the  Apostolic 
Age,"  vol.  ii.  p.  496. 


140          THE   THIRD   KINGDOM 

on  ordinary  principles,  if  we  could  define  re- 
generation as  the  effect  of  moral  persuasion, 
we  should  be  dealing  not  with  the  Unknown 
but  with  the  Known.  It  is  from  the  analy- 
sis of  natural  religion,  where  the  elements 
can  all  be  rationally  accounted  for,  that  men 
derive  their  chief  argument  against  the 
supernatural.  But  in  analysing  spirituality 
the  effort  to  detect  the  Living  Spirit  is  as 
idle  as  to  subject  protoplasm  to  microscopic 
examination  in  the  hope  of  discovering  Life. 
When  the  Spiritual  Life  is  discovered  in  the 
laboratory  it  will  be  time  to  give  it  up  alto- 
gether. It  may  then  say,  as  Socrates  of  his 
soul,  "You  can  bury  me — if  you  can  catch 
me." 

While  the  Powers  of  the  Third  Kingdom 
evade  analysis  their  Energy  is  not  less  real. 
The  activities  of  the  Third  Person  of  the 
Trinity  have  always  been  described  as  dy- 
namical. The  Spirit  is  the  executive  of  the 
Godhead,  carrying  out  the  sovereign  Will  by 
operations  as  irresistible  as  they  are  subtle. 
To  this  omnipotent  agency  are  to  be  referred 
ultimately  all  changes  which  take  place  with- 


THE   THIRD   KINGDOM  141 

in  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  This  is 
the  Source  of  Energy  for  the  Third  King- 
dom. And  long  before  the  days  of  Dy- 
namics, when  the  energies  of  the  Second 
Kingdom  were  less  understood  than  now  are 
those  of  the  Third,  the  schoolmen  were  wont 
to  express  their  conception  of  the  Divine 
Activity  in  Nature  and  in  Grace  by  the 
actual  use  of  the  word  physical?  Owen  also 
in  his  classical  work  on  the  Holy  Spirit  re- 
peatedly affirms  the  physical  nature  of  the 
Spirit's  operations,  especially  in  the  process 
of  regeneration :  "  There  is  a  real  physical 
work,  whereby  He  infuseth  a  gracious  prin- 
ciple of  spiritual  life  into  all  that  are  effec- 

1  Thus  Turret  in  speaking  of  the  gratia  efficacis  motio  : 
"  Non  est  simpliciter  physica,  quia  agitur  de  facultate  morali 
quae  congruenter  naturae  suae  mover!  debet  ;  nee  simpliciter 
ethica,  quasi  Deus  objective  solum  ageret,  et  leni  suasione 
uteretur,  quod  pertendebant  Pelagiani.  Sed  supernaturalis 
est  et  divina,  quas  transcendit  omnia  haec  genera.  Interim 
aliquid  de  ethico  et  physica  participat,  quia  et  potenter  et 
suaviter,  grate  et  invicte,  operatur  Spiritus  ad  nostri  con- 
versionem.  Ad  modum  physicum  pertinet,  quod  Deus 
Spiritu  suo  nos  creat,  regenerat,  cor  carneum  dat,  et  effi- 
cienter  habitus  supernaturales  fidei  et  charitatis  nobis  infundit. 
Ad  moralem  quod  verbo  docet,  inclinat,  suadet  et  rationibus 
variis  tanquam  vinculis  amoris  ad  se  trahit." 


142          THE   THIRD   KINGDOM 

tually  converted  and  really  regenerated,  and 
without  which  there  is  no  deliverance  from 
the  state  of  sin  and  death." 

Without  agitating  the  time-honoured  ques- 
tions as  to  whether  this  Spiritual  Power  is 
mediate  or  immediate,  whether  it  is  resistible 
or  irresistible,  whether  Spiritual  Life  is  to 
be  considered  as  part  of  it,  or  as  the  whole, 
or  as  none  of  it;  without  raising  problems 
suggested  by  current  scientific  thought  —  as 
to  whether  there  are  any  analogies  between 
these  and  the  ordinary  energies  of  nature ; 
whether,  for  instance,  they  are  capable  of 
Transformation,  Conservation,  or  Dissipa- 
tion—  we  may  rather  go  on  to  inquire  for 
the  evidence  of  the  spiritual  operations  them- 
selves and  for  the  results  which  ought  to 
have  followed.  It  will  assist  us,  howrever,  in 
understanding  the  evidence,  as  well  as  in 
defining  the  kind  of  result  to  be  looked  for, 
if  we  take  one  more  backward  glance  at  the 
two  earlier  Kingdoms.  Suppose  we  take 
our  stand  for  a  moment  on  the  confines  of 
the  Inorganic  Kingdom.  What  order  of 
phenomena  will  strike  us  first  ?  Shall  we 


THE   THIRD   KINGDOM          143 

see  the  Second  Kingdom  act  on  the  First, 
and  if  so,  in  what  particular  way  ? 

As  we  take  our  first  survey  of  the  Inor- 
ganic Kingdom  we  seem  to  be  surrounded 
by  the  dead.  Every  Atom  obeys  the  law  of 
inertia,  or  yields  to  simple  changes  induced 
by  polar,  molecular,  or  other  forces.  But 
presently,  into  this  dead  world,  an  unknown 
Power  descends,  feels  about,  seizes  certain 
Atoms,  and  manipulates  them  in  unprece- 
dented ways.  This  mysterious  Power  is  the 
Power  of  the  Kingdom  next  in  order  above. 
To  that  Kingdom,  indeed,  the  operations  of 
Life,  as  facts  of  everyday  occurrence,  are 
not  mysterious.  But  to  the  Atoms  they  are 
unintelligible  and  very  wonderful.  Here  is 
one  Atom  raised  from  the  dead.  Here  is 
another  refusing  to  bend  its  will  to  the 
attraction  of  gravity.  A  third,  subject  to 
crystalline  forces  from  the  beginning,  sud- 
denly defies  them  and  takes  its  place  as  a 
part  of  the  higher  symmetry  of  a  living 
organism.  As  their  Fellow-Atoms  observe 
these  extraordinary  changes,  from  time  to 
time  occurring  around  them,  they  have  only 


144          THE   THIRD   KINGDOM 

one  word  which  adequately  describes  them 
—  they  are  Miracles. 

Taking  our  stand  now  on  the  confines  of 
the  Organic,  shall  we  not  be  presented  with 
the  same  strange  spectacle  ?  Once  more  we 
are  surrounded  by  the  dead.  Once  more  a 
Power  descends  out  of  another  Kingdom  — 
a  Kingdom  just  in  order  above  —  and  manip- 
ulates Organisms  in  unprecedented  ways. 
Here  is  one  Organism  raised  from  the  dead. 
Here  is  another  refusing  to  bend  its  will  to 
the  attraction  of  sin.  A  third,  subject  to 
deforming  forces  from  the  beginning,  sud- 
denly defies  them,  and  assumes  a  high  and 
noble  spiritual  symmetry.  And  as  their 
Fellow-Organisms  observe  these  changes, 
their  word  again  is  Miracle. 

This  then,  is  what  meets  us  first  at  the 
portals  of  the  Third  Kingdom  —  Miracle. 
We  find  an  order  of  phenomena  strange  and 
inexplicable  to  the  lower  Kingdom,  but  as 
normal  within  its  own  sphere  as  are  the  opera- 
tions of  Life  in  the  Organic.  As  the  powers 
of  the  Second  Kingdom  master  the  First,  so 
the  powers  of  the  Third  master  the  Second. 


THE   THIRD   KINGDOM          145 

But  this  is  not  what  is  usually  called  Miracle. 
Miracle  is  a  much  narrower  thing  —  so  very 
narrow  a  thing  that  up  to  this  point  we  have 
scarcely  even  come  in  sight  of  it.  To  single 
out  a  few  specific  wonders  authenticated  by 
ancient  documents,  and  to  attach  to  them 
the  epithet  Miracle  is  a  limitation  so  mon- 
strous and  unwarranted  that  the  protest 
against  it  cannot  come  too  soon. 

The  question  of  the  miraculous  is  simply 
the  general  question  of  the  Third  Kingdom. 
To  apply  the  word  to  certain  acts  of  healing, 
to  beneficent  deeds  of  an  abnormal  charac- 
ter, or  to  deliverance  from  physical  danger, 
want,  or  death,  is  to  contemplate  the  reac- 
tions of  the  Spiritual  Kingdom  only  on  the 
lowest  plane  of  the  Organic  and  Inorganic 
Worlds.  The  outstanding  miracles,  on  the 
contrary,  are  those  effected  on  the  moral 
and  intellectual  portions  of  the  highest  de- 
partment of  the  Organic  Kingdom — namely, 
on  the  life  and  character  of  the  Natural  Man. 
The  attestation  of  Christianity  is  the  Chris- 
tian. Without  taking  this  into  account,  the 
supernatural  changes  wrought  on  the  lower 


10 


146          THE   THIRD   KINGDOM 

department  are  mere  wizard-work.  Miracle, 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  Second  King- 
dom, is  not  alone  objectionable  as  pure 
prodigy,  but  it  amounts  to  an  absolute 
breach  of  Continuity.  The  sceptical  defi- 
nitions of  miracle  from  this  standpoint  are 
perfectly  legitimate.  Hume  is  loyal  to 
nature  when  he  affirms  that  "  A  miracle  is 
a  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature;  and,  as 
a  firm  and  unalterable  experience  has  estab- 
lished these  laws,  the  proof  against  a  miracle, 
from  the  very  nature  of  the  fact,  is  as  entire 
as  any  argument  from  experience  that  can 
possibly  be  imagined."  Deliberately  choos- 
ing the  standpoint  of  the  Second  Kingdom, 
and  absolutely  rejecting  the  Third,  Hume 
had  no  alternative.  In  his  experience  of 
the  laws  of  nature,  no  variation  ever  occurred 
in  the  usual  course  of  antecedent  and  conse- 
quent. Thus  the  question  of  miracle  comes 
to  this  —  there  is  either  delusion,  fraud,  or  a 
Third  Kingdom ;  and  if  one  rejects  the  last, 
his  choice  between  the  two  former  is  imma- 
terial. 

If,  on  the   other  hand,   one   accepts   the 


THE   THIRD   KINGDOM          147 

Third  Kingdom,  the  miraculous  becomes 
not  only  credible  but  necessary.  The  Third 
Kingdom  would  not  be  the  Third  Kingdom 
if  it  could  not  operate  on  the  Kingdom 
beneath  it  in  a  way  which  to  the  Kingdoms 
below  would  seem  miraculous.  The  Second 
Kingdom  is  the  Second  Kingdom  because  it 
can  operate  on  the  First  in  a  way  which  to 
the  First  must  seem  miraculous.  It  is  supe- 
rior to  the  First  in  virtue  of  the  superiority 
of  its  powers  and  the  corresponding  complex- 
ity of  its  organisms.  In  precisely  the  same 
way  the  Third  rises  superior  to  the  Second. 
It  is  of  much  consequence  to  notice  that 
it  is  not  alone  the  forms  of  organisms  which 
are  found  evolving  in  nature,  but  the  powers 
or  energies.  There  is  a  dynamical  as  well 
as  a  statical  evolution.  The  First  Kingdom 
is  equipped  with  a  certain  set  of  powers,  or 
possibly  with  one  central  energy  capable  v  of 
assuming  varied  forms.  The  Second,  while 
inheriting  all  this  plenishing  of  the  Inorganic 
Earth,  brings  upon  the  scene  the  new  and 
commanding  powers  of  Life.  But  the  powers 
of  Life,  however  derived,  however  directed, 


148          THE  THIRD   KINGDOM 

are  still  feeble.  The  Organic  is  not  always 
master.  And  it  is  not  until  the  Higher 
Evolution  is  attained  that  the  complement 
appears.  Then  the  dominion  is  complete; 
that  which  is  perfect  is  come ;  and  both  the 
First  and  Second  Kingdoms  are  reigned  over 
by  the  Third.  Were  there  no  domination 
of  the  Second  by  the  Third,  there  had  been 
no  Third.  And  hence  the  naturalness  of 
our  Lord's  appeal  to  miracle  as  the  sign  to 
the  Second  of  the  existence  of  the  Third. 
If  a  plant  wished  to  convince  a  mineral  of 
the  reality  of  the  powers  of  the  vegetable 
Kingdom  —  acting  in  the  direction,  let  us 
say,  of  causing  matter  to  rise  in  the  air  — 
during  the  plant's  growth  in  defiance  of 
gravity  —  it  would  naturally  point  to  specific 
cases  where  these  powers  had  been  exercised. 
The  effect  in  the  first  instance  upon  the 
mineral  would  be  to  tempt  it  to  reject  the 
fact  as  contrary  to  experience,  but  as  the  evi- 
dence accumulated  both  in  quantity  and 
quality  the  doubt  must  gradually  dissolve. 
A  mineral,  subject  no  longer  to  the  in- 
organic forces  which  otherwise  reign  su- 


THE   THIRD   KINGDOM          149 

preme  throughout  the  Kingdom,  bearing 
practical  testimony  to  the  reality  and  supe- 
riority of  extra-inorganic  powers,  would 
certainly  be  a  phenomenon  of  transcendent 
scientific  significance.  Attention  would  be 
gradually  drawn  to  the  possibility  of  the  ex- 
istence of  a  higher  world,  and  as  the  facts 
were  seen  to  be  repeated,  and  as  from  differ- 
ent quarters  evidence  accumulated,  all  doubt 
upon  the  subject  must  gradually  dissolve. 
But  if,  instead  of  fixing  attention  upon  an 
isolated  case  here  and  there,  one  runs  his 
eye  over  the  boundary  line  dividing  the  In- 
organic from  the  Organic,  and  finds  the 
whole  frontier  abounding  in  similar  activities, 
like  the  seaward  margin  of  a  coral  reef 
fringed  with  the  living  polypes,  he  receives 
a  new  impression  of  their  character  and 
relations.  He  sees  that  these  marvellous 
reactions  are  at  that  point  no  longer  the 
exception  but  the  rule.  Miracle,  in  short,  is 
the  normal  frontier  phenomenon.  Along  the 
line  of  junction,  again,  between  the  Natural 
and  the  Spiritual  a  similar  set  of  activities 
are  carrying  on  their  ceaseless  work.  Con- 


ISO         THE   THIRD   KINGDOM 

templated  from  the  bottom  of  the  Second 
Kingdom,  where  on  an  isolated  group  here 
and  there  these  activities  are  operating  on 
grosser  material,  the  phenomena  are  excep- 
tional, unintelligible,  and  miraculous.  But  on 
the  frontier  they  are  the  normal  actions 
of  the  Third  Kingdom  on  the  Second, 
demanded  by  Continuity,  justified  in  the 
magnitude  and  gathering  potency  of  their 
operations  by  Evolution  and  susceptible  of 
the  same  kind  of  proof. 

That  they  are  so  little  observed  in  the 
higher  reaches  is  due  to  a  peculiar  law  of 
their  being.  The  Kingdom  cometh  without 
observation.  But  this  is  not  true  alone  for 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  With  infinite  gentle- 
ness the  Second  Kingdom  throws  over  the 
First  its  mysterious  spell.  With  infinite 
delicacy  its  tentacles  feel  among  the  all  but 
invisible  atoms  and  build  them  up  into  higher 
forms,  by  unperceived  and  silent  processes 
carrying  on  their  growth.  All  the  forces  of 
the  Inorganic  world  even  are  secret,  silent 
forces.  Gravity,  the  most  ponderous  of  all, 
came  down  the  ages  with  a  step  so  noiseless 


THE   THIRD   KINGDOM          151 

that  the  world  was  old  before  an  ear  was 
quick  enough  to  detect  its  footfall.  And  the 
Spiritual  forces  which  carry  on  the  processes 
to  the  further  stage,  re-creating  the  visible, 
acting  through  more  and  more  attenuated 
forms  of  matter,  become  themselves  more 
ethereal,  the  law  in  fact  being  that  the  various 
forces  decrease  in  grossness  as  they  increase 
in  power. 

But  in  the  first  days  of  Christianity  the 
invisibility  of  its  forces  formed  a  drawback 
to  its  development.  If  not  essential,  it  was 
at  least  advisable  that  the  outside  world 
should  become  at  once  aware  of  its  preten- 
sions. And  if  the  secret  operations  of  the 
Spirit  in  regenerating  men  were  then  insuffi- 
cient to  attract  attention,  it  became  necessary 
for  the  manifestation  to  descend  to  what 
some  might  call  a  lower  plane.  The  Spirit- 
ual, having  power  over  the  whole  range  of 
the  Organic  and  Inorganic,  might  fitly  exert 
an  influence  in  a  region  where  the  miracle 
might  be  palpable,  startling  and  unmistak- 
able. It  might  be  urged  indeed  that  Virtue 
could  not  but  go  out  of  Jesus  at  whatever 


152          THE   THIRD   KINGDOM 

point  He  touched  life ;  but  at  the  same  time 
this  lower  miracle  was  not  due  to  the  inad- 
vertent overflow  of  a  full  vessel,  but  designed 
to  strike  men  who  could  not  rise  to  the  per- 
ception of  loftier  manifestations.  The  num- 
ber of  occasions  on  which  He  made  this 
concession,  always  of  course  with  the  higher 
purpose  directly  in  view  and  apparent  in 
the  immediate  result,  was  probably  very 
much  larger  than  the  limited  information  we 
possess  might  lead  us  to  suspect.  The 
Evangelists  hint  that  these  interpolations  of 
the  Higher  Powers,  these  suspensions  of  the 
ordinary  course  of  nature  in  obedience  to  a 
higher  law,  occurred  with  great  frequency. 
And  although  it  is  proper  to  notice  the 
striking  and  suggestive  fact  of  the  extreme 
conservation  of  this  power  in  the  life-work  of 
Jesus,  it  is  equally  necessary  to  bear  in  mind 
that  He  continually  did  works  which  no 
other  man  did,  and  periodically  appealed  to 
these  as  a  ground  why  the  members  of  the 
Natural  Kingdom  should  accept  the  Spiritual. 
But  there  could  be  no  greater  mistake  than 
to  perpetuate  the  appeal  to  this  rudimentary 


THE   THIRD   KINGDOM          153 

form  of  miracle  as  the  continued  attestation 
of  Christianity.  If  miracle  ceased  with  the 
first  century,  our  faith,  to  a  large  extent, 
ceases  with  it,  or  at  least  most  seriously  suf- 
fers. What  we  have  to  point  to  now  for  the 
credentials  of  Christianity  is  not  a  first  series 
of  miracles  but  the  series  itself  —  the  series 
which  extends  down  to  the  present  hour. 
To  ignore  this  is  to  put  ourselves  in  a 
position  where  belief  has  everything  against 
it,  human  testimony  notwithstanding.  But  if 
we  begin  with  the  phenomena  which  we  see 
around  us,  or  can  see  if  we  will,  and  argue 
backwards,  step  by  step,  coming  slowly  down 
to  the  time  when  the  Miracle  Himself  was 
upon  the  stage,  we  reach  a  point  where  signs 
and  wonders  really  appear  to  us  as  the  in- 
evitable. The  denial  of  miracles  accordingly, 
in  the  ordinary  sense,  is  not  the  evidence  of 
superior  wisdom,  but  mainly  of  defective 
observation.  Unless  gravity  had  continued 
to  act  during  the  last  two  centuries  we  should, 
perhaps,  have  been  justified  in  saying  that 
Newton  was  mistaken  when  he  saw  the  apple 
fall  to  the  ground.  How  could  such  a  thing 


154         THE   THIRD   KINGDOM 

happen  ?  Is  Newton  to  contradict  "  the  uni- 
versal experience  of  mankind "  ?  Is  his 
testimony  to  be  accepted  rather  than  that  of 
Herschel  or  Faraday,  who  never  saw  such  a 
thing  happen  ?  Is  not  such  a  violation  of 
the  laws  of  nature  altogether  incredible  and 
inconceivable,  even  although  the  whole  of 
Woolsthorpe  were  looking  over  the  orchard 
wall  when  the  apple  fell  ? 

Now,  if  Christianity  ceased  to  act  with  the 
first  century,  I  do  not  see  that  we  can  argue 
for  the  miraculous.  Unless  we  include  the 
Third  Kingdom  in  our  conception  a  miracle 
is  certainly  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature. 
And  if  the  Third  Kingdom  has  passed  away 
miracles  may  be  interesting,  but  their  occu- 
pation is  gone  —  there  is  nothing  for  them 
to  attest  to  me.  On  the  other  hand  if  the 
Powers  of  the  Third  Kingdom  are  working 
around  me  now  I  am  independent  of  them. 
I  have  the  superior  credential  of  the  "  greater 
works  "  which  Christ's  disciples  were  to  do  in 
His  name. 

But  I  have  said  the  denial  of  miracles  is 
due  mainly  to  defective  observation  —  mainly 


THE  THIRD   KINGDOM          155 

however,  not  wholly.  The  members  of  the 
Third  Kingdom  have  something  to  answer 
for  themselves  here.  They  have  failed  to 
provide  due  materials  for  observation. 
Energy  may  be  potential  as  well  as  kinetic. 
Were  a  visitant  from  a  distant  planet  who 
had  read  "  The  Correlation  of  the  Physical 
Forces  "  or  Ganot's  "  Physics  "  to  land  on  the 
coast  of  Labrador  and  demand  of  the 
Esquimaux  to  be  shown  the  energies  of 
electricity  or  the  powers  of  steam,  his  credu- 
lity in  his  authorities  would  certainly  be 
shaken.  And  even  if  he  were  informed  by  a 
passing  Nordenskiold  that  many  of  the 
physical  forces  were  available  at  Labrador, 
only  the  people  had  never  utilised  them,  his 
bewilderment  would  not  be  lessened.  Those 
who  read  the  Christian's  Book  hear  in  like 
manner  of  faith  to  remove  mountains,  of 
love  stronger  than  death,  of  limitless  powers 
to  be  had  for  the  asking,  of  all  the  fulness 
of  the  Godhead  placed  at  man's  disposal. 
And  when  they  turn  to  those  who  know  this 
Book,  who  profess  to  believe  it,  who  con- 
tribute themselves  to  the  literature  of  the 


156         THE   THIRD   KINGDOM 

Third  Kingdom  expanding  and  enforcing  its 
ideas,  and  almost  forcing  them  on  men's  at- 
tention, what  do  they  see  ?  Is  it  any  satis- 
faction that  a  courteous  Nordenskiold  assures 
them  that  these  forces  are  there  withal,  only 
the  members  of  this  frigid  province  at  the 
moment  do  not  happen  to  employ  them  ? 
For  does  not  the  critic  see  multitudes  of  in- 
dividuals met  every  week  for  the  ostensible 
purpose  of  receiving  these  powers,  down  on 
their  knees  by  the  thousand  crying  for  them 
to  come  ?  What  is  he  to  make  of  it  ?  Is  he 
dreaming  or  they  ?  Or  does  the  Kingdom 
come  —  but  without  observation ?  No;  the 
Kingdom  does  not  come.  On  the  larcje  scale 

O  O 

it  does  not  come.  The  splendid  machinery 
of  Christianity  is  standing  still.  The  Church 
is  paralysed.  When  the  Second  Kingdom 
asks  the  Third  for  its  credentials  it  remains 
silent.  It  has  something  to  show  in  the 
past;  it  points  sadly  to  the  early  centuries. 
But  for  the  present  nothing  stirs;  it  is  all  as 
frozen  as  Labrador. 

So  men  tell  us  the  spiritual  energies  are  a 
myth  —  which  is  as  inconclusive  as  the  state- 


THE   THIRD   KINGDOM  157 

ment  that  the  physical  forces  are  myths 
where  they  are  not  utilised.  The  scepticism 
of  the  age  nevertheless  lies  at  the  door  of  the 
Church.  That  there  are  individuals,  and 
here  and  there  churches,  witnessing  to  the 
powers  of  the  Third  Kingdom  is  not  to  be 
gainsaid.  No  man  who  really  desires  to 
satisfy  himself  of  the  reality  of  the  Spiritual 
World  will  seek  in  vain  for  a  demonstration 
of  the  Spirit  and  of  Power.  But  the  appeal 
is  not  going  forth  to  all  the  earth  and  arrest- 
ing men  by  a  testimony  triumphant  and  irre- 
sistible. The  Power  that  operated  at  Pente- 
cost is  no  longer  a  mighty  and  awakening 
force.  And  even  the  ethical  li^ht  which  the 

O 

subjects  of  the  Third  Kingdom  were  admon- 
ished to  "  let  shine  among  men  "  is  all  but 
too  dim  to  see. 

Now,  whatever  may  be  the  state  of 
matters  at  present  within  the  Visible  Church 
of  the  Third  Kingdom,  let  us  not  blind  our- 
selves to  the  unspeakably  important  fact  that 
the  Spiritual  World  contains  forms  of  energy 
infinitely  more  powerful  than  those  of  the 
First  and  Second.  It  has  never  been  suffi- 


158          THE  THIRD   KINGDOM 

ciently  realised  how  much  greater  they  are 
—  how  much  greater  they  must  be,  even 
from  analogy.  One  might  almost  speak  of 
an  Evolution  of  Energy  going  on  as  we  rise 
from  higher  to  higher  Kingdoms.  By  this, 
of  course,  is  not  meant  that  the  higher 
energy  is  in  any  sense  evolved  from  the 
lower,  but  that  the  potency  —  whatever  may 
be  the  source  of  the  increment  —  is  found 
gradually  becoming  stronger  and  stronger. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  while  the  energy  within 
each  Kingdom  is  constant,  the  organic 
powers  are  greater  than  the  inorganic,  the 
Spiritual  than  either.  And  the  one  thing 
requisite  at  once  for  the  attestation  of  the 
Third  Kingdom  and  the  further  evolution  of 
the  Second  is  that  the  subjects  of  the  former 
should  give  heed  once  more  to  the  offer  of 
its  King  and  Founder,  "  If  ye,  being  evil, 
know  how  to  give  good  gifts  to  your  chil- 
dren, much  more  will  your  heavenly  Father 
give  the  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  it." 


The   Problem 
of  Foreign 
Missions 


Address  delivered  at  the  opening 
of  the  session  in  the  Free  Church 
College,  Glasgow,  in  November, 
1890. 


The  Problem  of 
Foreign   Missions 

IT  has  for  a  long  time  seemed  to  me  that 
missionary  facts,  and  the  missionary 
problem  generally,  are  susceptible  of  more 
special  —  may  I  say  more  scientific  ?  —  treat- 
ment than  they  usually  receive ;  and  the 
large  size  of  the  field  which  it  has  fallen  to 
me  to  see  is  favourable  to  that  methodical 
survey  of  the  whole  which  is  denied  even 
to  the  missionary,  for  he  represents  but  a 
single  field. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  men  who 
offer  their  lives  to  their  fellow-men  may 
regard  the  world.  They  mean  the  same 
thing  in  the  end,  but  you  will  not  misunder- 
stand me  if  I  express  the  apparent  distinc- 
tion in  the  boldest  terms.  The  first  view 
is  that  the  world  is  lost  and  must  be  saved ; 

ii 


162  THE   PROBLEM    OF 

the  second,  that  the  world  is  sunken  and 
must  be  raised.  According  to  the  first, 
the  peoples  of  the  world  are  looked  upon 
as  souls  —  souls  to  be  redeemed;  the  second 
thinks  of  them  rather  as  men  —  men  to  be 
perfected;  or  as  nations — nations  to  be 
made  righteous.  The  first  deals  with  a 
sinner's  status  in  the  sight  of  God,  the 
second  with  his  character  in  the  sight  of 
men.  The  first  preaches  mainly  justifica- 
tion ;  the  second  mainly  regeneration.  The 
first  is  the  standpoint  of  the  popular  evan- 
gelism ;  the  second  is  the  view  of  evolution. 
The  danger  of  the  first  is  to  save  the  souls 
of  men  and  there  leave  them ;  the  danger 
of  the  second  is  to  ignore  the  soul  alto- 
gether. As  I  shall  speak  now  from  the 
last  standpoint,  I  point  out  its  danger  at 
once,  and  meet  it  by  adding  to  its  watch- 
word, evolution,  the  qualifying  term,  Chris- 
tian. This  alone  takes  account  of  the  whole 
nature  of  man,  of  sin  and  guilt,  of  the  future 
and  of  the  past,  and  recognises  the  Christian 
facts  and  forces  as  alone  adequate  to  deal 
with  them.  The  advantage  of  speaking  of 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  163 

"  the  Christian  evolution  of  the  world," 
instead  of,  or,  at  least,  as  a  change  from, 
"the  evangelisation  of  the  world,"  will  ap- 
pear as  we  go  on.  By  making  temporary 
use  of  the  one  standpoint,  I  do  not  exclude 
the  other ;  and  if  I  ignore  it  from  this  point 
onward,  it  is  not  because  it  is  not  legitimate, 
but  simply  because  it  is  not  the  subject. 

Nothing  ought  to  be  kept  more  persist- 
ently before  the  mind  of  those  who  are 
open  to  serve  the  world  as  missionaries 
than  the  great  complexity  of  the  missionary 
problem ;  and  nothing  more  strikes  one 
who  goes  round  the  world  than  the  amazing 
variety  of  work  required  and  the  almost 
radical  differences  among  the  various  mis- 
sion fields.  In  the  popular  conception  the 
peoples  of  the  world  are  roughly  divided 
into  black  and  white,  or  Christian  and 
heathen,  and  the  man  who  designates  him- 
self for  the  mission  field  makes  a  general 
choice,  taking  the  first  opening  that  comes 
and  considering  but  little  in  his  decision 
that  there  are  many  shades  of  black,  and 
innumerable  kinds  of  heathen.  But  it  is 


164  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

just  as  absurd  for  a  man  to  choose  in  general 
terms  "  the  foreign  field "  and  go  abroad 
to  rescue  heathen,  as  for  a  planter  to  go 
anywhere  abroad  in  the  hope  of  sowing 
general  seed  and  producing  general  coffee. 
The  planter  soon  finds  out  that  there  are 
many  soils  in  the  world,  some  suited  to  one 
crop  and  some  to  another;  that  seed  must 
be  put  in  for  each  particular  crop  in  one 
way  and  not  in  another;  that  he  requires 
particular  implements  in  each  case  and  not 
any  implements,  and  that  the  time  between 
sowing  and  reaping,  and  even  between  sow- 
ing and  sprouting,  is  an  always  appreciable 
and  very  varying  interval.  The  mission 
field  has  like  distinctions.  Some  crops  it 
is  mere  waste  of  time  to  try  to  plant  in  one 
place ;  the  specialist's  business  is  to  find  out 
what  will  grow  there.  Some  crops  will  not 
and  cannot  come  up  in  one  year,  or  in  ten 
years,  or  even  in  fifty  years ;  it  is  the  special- 
ist's business  to  study  scientifically  the  pos- 
sibilities of  growth,  the  limitations  of  growth, 
and  the  impossibilities  of  growth.  It  is 
irrational  also  for  the  missionary  to  carry 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  165 

the  same  message,  or  rather  the  same  form 
of  message,  to  every  land,  or  to  think  that 
the  thought  which  told  to-day  will  tell  to- 
morrow; he  must  rotate  his  crops  as  God 
through  the  centuries  rotates  the  social  soil 
on  which  they  are  to  grow.  To  every  land 
he  must  take,  not  the  general  list  of  agri- 
cultural implements  furnished  by  his  college, 
but  one  or  two  of  special  make  which  possi- 
bly his  college  has  never  heard  of.  Above 
all,  when  he  reaches  his  field,  his  duty  is  to 
find  out  what  God  has  grown  there  already, 
for  there  is  no  field  in  the  world  where  the 
Great  Husbandman  has  not  sown  something. 
Instead  of  uprooting  his  Maker's  work  and 
clearing  the  field  of  all  the  plants  that  found 
no  place  in  his  small  European  herbarium, 
he  will  rather  water  the  growths  already 
there  and  continue  the  work  at  the  point 
where  the  Spirit  of  God  is  already  moving. 
A  hasty  critic,  when  these  sentences  were 
spoken,  construed  them  into  a  plea  for 
building  up  Christianity  upon  heathenism. 
The  words  are  "  what  God  has  sown  there," 
and  "  where  the  Spirit  of  God  is  already 


166  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

moving."  The  missionary  problem,  in 
short,  so  far  from  being  a  mere  saving  of 
promiscuous  souls  with  a  few  well-worn 
appliances,  is  a  most  complex  question  of 
Social  Evolution. 

Let  me  illustrate  the  necessity  of  further 
specialisation  in  regard  to  missions  by  refer- 
ence to  the  three  or  four  very  different  fields 
which  I  have  just  visited.  As  examples  of 
what  might  be  called  a  scientific  classifica- 
tion of  missions,  one  could  scarcely  pick 
any  more  typical  than  Australia,  the  South 
Sea  Islands,  China,  and  Japan.  I  include 
Australia  among  mission  fields,  and  I  might 
with  it  include  both  British  Columbia  and 
Manitoba,  because  none  of  these  countries 
can  provide  as  yet  for  its  own  evangelisation. 

I.  Australia.  The  missionary  problem, 
or  the  mission  churches  problem,  in  these 
colonies  is  to  deal  with  a  civilised  people 
undergoing  abnormally  rapid  development. 
Australia  is  a  case  of  prodigiously  active 
growth  in  a  few  directions  under  most  favour- 
able natural  conditions  for  nation-making. 
It  is  what  a  biologist  would  call  an  organic 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  167 

mass  of  the  highest  possible  mobility,  of  al- 
most perilous  sensitiveness  to  prevailing  im- 
pressions, with  feeble  safeguards  to  conserve 
its  solid  gains,  and  few  boundary  lines  either 
to  shape  or  limit  other  growths.  The  or- 
derly progress  here  is  complicated  mainly 
by  one  thing,  —  a  continuous  accretion  of 
outside  elements  —  due  to  immigration  — 
which  creates  difficulties  in  assimilation. 
The  chief  problem  of  Christianity  is  to  keep 
pace  with  the  continuous  growth ;  the  im- 
mediate peril  is  that  it  may  be  wholly  ignored 
in  the  pressure  of  competing  growths. 

II.  The  South  Sea  Islands,  of  which  the 
New  Hebrides  are  a  type,  lie  exactly  at  the 
opposite  end  of  the  scale.  Growth,  so  far 
from  being  active,  has  not  even  begun. 
Here  are  no  nations,  scarcely  even  tribes. 
The  first  step  in  evolution,  aggregation,  has 
not  yet  taken  place.  These  people  are  still 
at  zero;  they  are  the  Amcebas  of  the  hu- 
man world.  There  is  no  complication  here 
of  unassimilated  elements  introduced  by  im- 
migration, but  a  serious  opposite  difficulty 
—  depletion  due  to  emigration  to  other 


1 68  THE   PROBLEM    OF 

countries,  and  to  other  causes  which  vitally 
affect  the  whole  future  problem.  As  to  re- 
ligion here,  the  field  is  altogether  open,  for 
there  is  none  at  all. 

III.  China.     Midway  between  the  South 
Sea  Islands  and  the  Australian  colonies,  this 
nation,  as  every  one  knows,  is  an  instance 
of  arrested  development.     On  the  fair  way 
to  become  a  higher  vertebrate,  it  has  stopped 
short   at    the   crustacean.      There    are    two 
complications:  the  amazing  strength  of  the 
exoskeleton  —  the  external  shell   of  custom 
and  tradition,  so  hardened  by  the  deposits 
of  centuries  as  to    make  the    evolutionist's 
demand   for  mobility,   i.  e.,  for  capacity    to 
change,     almost     non-existent.       Secondly, 
which  directly   concerns   Christianity,  there 
is  a  very  powerful  religion  already  in  posses- 
sion.    These   two   complications   make    the 
missionary  problem  in  China  one  of  the  most 
delicate  in  the  world. 

IV.  If   the    South    Sea    Islands    are    the 
opposite  of  Australia,  China,  in  turn,  finds 
its  almost  perfect  contrast  in  Japan.     One 
with   it.  in   stagnation   and   isolation    from 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  169 

external  influences  during  three  thousand 
years,  almost  within  the  last  hour  Japan  has 
broken  what  Mr.  Bagehot  calls  its  "  cake  of 
custom,"  and  so  sudden  and  mature  has  al- 
ready been  its  development  that  it  is,  at  this 
moment  demanding  from  the  Powers  of 
Europe  political  recognition  as  one  of  the 
civilised  nations  of  the  world.  This  is  an 
entirely  different  case  from  any  of  the  pre- 
ceding. It  is  the  insect  emerging  from  the 
chrysalis.  From  the  Christian  standpoint, 
the  case  is  unique  in  history.  Its  own  re- 
ligion was  abandoned  a  few  years  ago,  and 
the  country  is  at  present  looking  for  another. 
Even  this  rough  classification  will  serve 
to  show  how  far  from  simple  the  missionary 
question  really  is,  how  the  problem  varies 
from  place  to  place,  how  different  the  equip- 
ment for  each  particular  field,  how  wise  the 
mind  which  should  know  where  to  strike 
in,  how  responsible  the  hand  which  would 
finger  these  subtle  threads  of  human  des- 
tiny, or  move  among  the  roots  of  national 
life,  which  God  alone  has  tended  in  the 
past.  To  the  Christian  evolutionist  these 


170  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

differences  are  educative.  They  mark  dif- 
ferent stages  in  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God  on  earth,  none  of  them  in  vain,  all 
of  them  to  be  allowed  for,  some  perhaps  to 
be  reset  in  the  superstructure  Christianity 
would  build  upon  them. 

Suppose  now  the  Churches  had  compiled 
a  classification  on  some  such  lines  of  all  the 
mission  fields  of  the  world,  it  would  serve 
two  practical  purposes.  In  the  first  place, 
it  would  be  the  duty  of  the  would-be  mis- 
sionary to  go  over  that  list,  and  select  from 
it  the  exact  kind  of  work  to  which  he  was 
most  suited.  In  this  way  the  missionary 
staff  would  be  differentiated  with  more 
exactness  than  at  present.  Each  man,  also, 
having  made  his  choice,  would  further  equip 
himself  along  particular  lines,  and  become 
a  specialist  at  his  work.  In  the  second 
place,  and  what  is  just  now  of  even  more 
importance,  it  would  make  it  possible  for 
some  men  to  be  missionaries,  and  these 
among  the  best  men  entering  the  Univer- 
sities, who  see  no  room  for  themselves  at 
present  in  the  foreign  field.  Some  men 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  171 

with  such  a  review  before  them  might  see 
at  once  that  there  was  no  place  for  them  in 
missionary  work  at  all ;  but  others,  and,  I 
believe,  a  larger  number  than  have  ever 
been  attracted  by  this  career,  would  find 
there  something  open  to  them  —  would  find 
in  a  service  which  they  had  looked  upon, 
perhaps,  as  somewhat  limited  and  narrow, 
something  which,  when  looked  upon  in  all 
its  length  and  breadth,  was  large  enough 
and  rich  enough  in  practical  possibilities  to 
make  them  offer  to  it  the  whole-hearted 
work  of  their  lives.  To-day,  certainly,  some 
of  the  best  men  do  go  to  the  foreign  field  ; 
but  the  reason  why  more  do  not  go  is  not 
indifference  to  its  claims,  but  uncertainty  as 
to  whether  they  are  exactly  the  type  of  men 
wanted,  i.  e.,  in  plain  language,  uncertainty 
as  to  whether  the  cut  of  their  theology  quite 
qualifies  them  to  be  the  successors  of  Carey 
or  Williams.  These  men  feel  orthodox 
enough,  of  course,  to  be  clergymen  at  home, 
but  they  have  a  secret  sense  that  their 
views  might  be  scarcely  the  thing  on  Ero- 
manga.  The  missionary  theology  —  it  is 


i;2  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

useless  disguising  it — is  supposed  to  be  a 
very  special  article,  and  a  kind  of  theologi- 
cal modesty  forbids  some  of  our  strongest 
men  from  considering  it  conceivable  that 
they  should  ever  aspire  to  be  missionaries. 
Now  this  feeling  is  very  real,  but  I  am  con- 
vinced that  it  is  very  ignorant  —  ignorant 
of  the  changed  standpoint  from  which  scores 
of  our  missionaries  are  even  now  doing  their 
work,  ignorant  of  the  world's  real  needs, 
ignorant  of  the  hospitality  which  they 
would  receive  from  many  at  least  of  the 
officials  of  most  of  the  Mission  Boards. 
And  yet  these  Boards  are  not  wholly  guilt- 
less of  having  made  it  appear,  or  permitting 
it  to  continue  understood,  that  only  those  of 
a  certain  type  need  look  for  welcome  at 
their  doors.  I  am  not  referring  to  any  par- 
ticular Church  ;  but  I  do  not  think  the  mis- 
sion committees  of  the  world  have  ever 
worded  an  advertisement  for  men  in  lan- 
guage modern  enough  to  include  the  class 
of  whom  I  speak.  I  am  not  arguing  for 
free-lances,  or  budding  sceptics,  or  rational- 
ists being  turned  loose  on  our  mission  fields. 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  173 

But  for  young  men  —  and  our  colleges  were 
never  richer  in  them  than  at  this  moment  — 
who  combine  with  all  modern  culture  the 
consecrated  spirit  and  the  Christ-like  life ; 
for  men  who  are  too  honest  to  go  under 
false  pretences  to  a  work  which,  though 
they  be  not  yet  specially  enthusiastic  for  it, 
they  are  entirely  willing  to  face,  there  ought 
to  go  forth  a  new  and  more  charitable  call. 
It  ought  at  least  to  be  understood  that  what 
qualifies  to-day  for  the  leading  Churches  at 
home  ought  not  to  disqualify  for  the  work 
of  Christ  abroad,  but  that  there  is  for  Chris- 
tian men  of  the  highest  originality  and 
power  a  career  in  the  foreign  field  at  least 
as  great  and  rational  as  that  at  home.  In- 
deed, so  far  from  such  men  feeling  as  if 
they  were  not  wanted  in  the  foreign  field, 
or  at  the  best  that  their  presence  there 
could  but  be  tolerated  by  the  Mission 
Boards,  I  am  sure  the  committee,  at  least 
of  some  Churches,  not  only  want  these  men 
to-day,  but  scarcely  want  anything  else. 

First,  always,  in  opening  a  new  mission 
field  comes  the  splendid  work  of  the  pioneer, 


174  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

the  old  missionary  pioneer  of  the  Sunday- 
school  picture  books,  who  stands  with  his 
Bible  under  the  stereotyped  palm-tree,  ex- 
horting the  crowd  of  impossible  blacks. 
These  we  have  had  in  most  fields  now,  and 
their  work  must  still  and  always  continue. 
But  next  we  have  these  same  men  in  settled 
charges,  founding  congregations,  planting 
schools,  and  carrying  on  the  whole  evangeli- 
cal work  of  the  Christian  Church.  But  next, 
among  these,  and  gathered  from  these,  and 
in  addition  to  these,  we  require  a  further 
class  not  wholly  absorbed  with  specific 
charges,  or  ecclesiastical  progress,  or  the  in- 
culcation of  Western  creeds,  but  whose  out- 
look goes  forth  to  the  nation  as  a  whole ; 
men  who  in  many  ways  not  directly  on  the 
programme  of  the  missionary  society  will 
help  on  its  education,  its  morality,  and  its 
healthy  progress  in  all  that  makes  for  right- 
eousness. This  man,  besides  being  the  mis- 
sionary, is  the  Christian  politician,  the  apostle 
of  a  new  social  order,  the  moulder  and  con- 
solidator  of  the  State.  He  places  the  accent, 
if  such  an  extreme  expression  of  a  distinction 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  175 

may  be  allowed,  not  on  the  progress  of  a 
Church,  but  on  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  He  is  not  the  herald,  but  the 
prophet  of  the  Cross. 

Of  course  every  missionary  who  nowadays 
sets  out  for  a  foreign  field  acquires  before- 
hand some  general  idea  of  the  lie  of  things 
in  the  country  to  which  he  goes ;  but  what 
is  needed  is  more  than  a  general  idea.  The 
Christianising  of  a  nation  such  as  China  or 
Japan  is  an  intricate  ethical,  philosophical 
and  social  as  well  as  Christian  problem ;  the 
serious  taking  of  any  new  country  indeed  is 
not  to  be  done  by  casual  sharp-shooters 
bringing  down  their  man  or  two  here  and 
there,  but  by  a  carefully  thought  out  attack 
upon  central  points,  or  by  patient  siege, 
planned  with  all  a  military  tactician's  know- 
ledge. We  have  at  present,  and,  as  already 
said,  we  shall  always  need,  and  they  will  al- 
ways do  their  measure  of  good,  devoted  men 
of  the  sharp-shooter  order  who  aim  at  single 
souls ;  but  in  addition  to  these  the  Kingdom 
of  God  needs  men  who  work  with  a  wider 
vision  —  men  prepared  by  fulness  of  histori- 


176  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

cal,  ethnological,  and  sociological  knowledge 
to  become  the  statesmen  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God. 

Let  me  spend  what  time  remains  in  briefly 
expanding  the  classification  already  given  — 
partly  to  illustrate  better  what  I  mean,  but 
especially  to  furnish  a  few  materials  to  help 
those  whose  eyes,  when  they  think  of  their  fu- 
ture life,  sometimes  turn  towards  distant  lands. 

I  begin  with  the  New  Hebrides  —  mainly 
because  least  is  known  about  them.  The 
New  Hebrides  mission  represents  a  class  of 
missions  differing  so  essentially  from  those 
of  the  third  and  fourth  classes  —  China  and 
Japan  —  that  any  one  who  was  taught  to  re- 
gard it  as  a  typical  mission  work  would  be 
completely  misguided ;  and  for  some  men  at 
least  a  mission  work  of  this  order  would  be 
almost  the  last  thing  they  would  throw  them- 
selves into.  For  what  are  the  real  facts? 
The  New  Hebrides  are  a  group  of  small 
islands,  a  few  about  the  size  of  Arran,  a  very 
few  others  two  or  three  times  as  large,  the 
whole  of  no  geographical  importance.  They 
are  peopled  by  beings  of  the  lowest  human 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  177 

type  to  the  number  of  probably  not  more 
than  50,000,  so  that  they  are  of  no  political 
importance.  This  does  not  refer  to  the 
islands,  but  to  the  people.  The  islands 
themselves  are  of  so  great  political  import- 
ance at  the  present  moment  that  the  allegi- 
ance of  Australia  to  England  would  tremble 
in  the  balance  if  there  were  any  suspicion 
that  the  Home  Government  would  hand 
them  over  to  France.  The  population  may 
be  over  or  under  that  here  stated.  I  have 
taken  my  figures  from  authorities  on  the 
spot,  but  any  approximation  to  the  numbers 
of  inhabitants  on  these  partially  explored 
islands  must  be  a  guess.  Whether  we  regard 
their  quality  or  quantity,  they  can  never  play 
any  appreciable  part  in  the  world's  story; 
and  the  question  which  would  immediately 
rise  in  the  mind  of  the  man  who  looked  at 
the  world  from  the  standpoint  of  evolution 
would  be  the  direct  one :  Is  it  really  worth 
while  sending  twenty  first-rate  men  to  till 
this  vineyard  which  can  never  contribute 
anything  of  importance  to  mankind  ?  If  it 
be  replied,  But  is  it  proved  that  they  will 


12 


178  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

not?  the  answer  is  a  sad  one.  A  closer 
study  of  these  islands  shows  that  instead  of 
increasing  their  population,  these  are  dying 
fast.  On  the  first  which  I  visited,  Aneityum, 
when  the  missionaries  reached  it,  there  were 
some  thousands  of  inhabitants.  To-day 
there  is  a  bare  four  hundred  of  depressed 
and  sickly  souls.  The  children  are  swept 
away  by  the  white  man's  epidemics  almost 
as  soon  as  they  are  born,  and  the  mission- 
aries tell  you  that  the  total  doom  of  this 
island  may  be  a  matter  of  some  score  years. 
The  very  church  which  was  built  for  the 
islanders  in  better  days  has  had  to  be  cut  in 
two,  and  even  the  portioned  half  is  now  too 
large ;  and  a  small  chapel  is  to  be  built  to 
hold  the  remnant  of  this  once  noble  flock. 
It  is  a  dismal  story,  but  it  is  more  than  likely 
that  it  will  be  repeated  in  time  to  a  greater 
or  less  extent,  not  only  throughout  this 
group,  but  throughout  the  whole  of  the  un- 
christianised  South  Sea  Islands.  At  New 
Caledonia  I  found  the  depletion  of  popula- 
tion even  more  appalling ;  and  though  here 
and  there  an  island  may  escape,  the  ultimate 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  179 

prospect  is  almost  total  obliteration.  This 
being  so,  what  man  who  entered  the  mission 
field  from  the  standpoint  from  which  I 
speak,  what  man  who  wished  his  work,  how- 
ever small,  to  contribute  to  the  permanent 
evolution  of  the  world,  would  choose  the 
New  Hebrides  for  his  mission  field?  No 
man  would.  Yet  is  the  inference  then  to  be 
drawn  that  this  mission  is  a  mistake  ?  There 
is  a  book  by  an  accomplished  clergyman 
called  Wrong  Missions  to  Wrong  Races  in 
Wrong  Places.  Is  its  thesis,  when  it  an- 
swers this  question  in  the  affirmative,  cor- 
rect ?  I  should  be  the  last  to  say  so,  though 
its  warning  is  a  true  one.  For,  as  we  have 
seen,  there  are  missions  and  missions;  and 
this  mission  belongs  to  a  type  which  ought  to 
be  more  clearly  defined  and  acknowledged. 

In  the  evolutionary  branch  of  missions  it 
has  simply  no  place  at  all  —  no  place  at  all. 
It  is  a  mistake  from  first  to  last.  But  it 
does  not  belong  to  this  class,  and  is  not 
to  be  judged  by  its  standards — perhaps  by 
higher  ones.  It  belongs  to  the  Order  of 
the  Good  Samaritan.  It  is  a  mission  of 


1 8o  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

pure  benevolence.  Its  parallel  is  the  mis- 
sion of  Father  Damien  on  the  Leper  Island. 
Who  shall  say  that  there  are  not,  and  will 
not  always  be,  men  among  us  who  see  that 
kind  of  mission,  men  who  have  no  intel- 
lectual apprehension  of  evolution,  but  who 
possess  the  pitiful  heart  ?  Or  who  will  say 
that  the  day  will  ever  come  when  the  leaders 
of  the  wider  movement  will  grudge  such  men 
to  the  lost  places  of  the  earth  ? 

I  cannot  leave  this  subject  without  paying 
my  passing  tribute  —  may  I  say  my  homage  ? 
for  tribute  they  need  not — to  the  missionaries 
of  the  New  Hebrides  themselves.  From  a 
recent  biography  which  all  of  you  have  read, 
you  know  something  of  the  difficulties  of 
their  work.  You  remember  the  description 
of  the  Island  of  Tanna,  the  remoteness  of 
its  position,  the  strangeness  of  its  language, 
the  fierceness  of  its  people ;  you  remember 
how  daily  the  savages  sought  the  mission- 
ary's life,  and  how  after  years  of  facing 
death  in  a  hundred  forms  he  was  driven 
from  their  shores  with  scarcely  a  single  con- 
vert for  his  hire.  Last  June,  sailing  along 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  181 

Tanna,  I  tried  to  land  near  Mr.  Paton's  de- 
serted field.  With  me  was  one  of  the  mis- 
sionaries who  has  now  gained  a  footing  on 
another  part  of  that  still  cannibal  island. 
As  we  neared  the  shore,  a  hundred  painted 
savages  poured  from  out  the  woods,  and  pre- 
pared to  fire  upon  us  with  their  guns  and 
poisoned  arrows.  But  the  missionary  stood 
up  in  the  bow  of  the  boat  and  spoke  two 
words  to  them  in  their  native  tongue.  In- 
stantly every  gun  was  laid  upon  the  beach, 
and  they  rushed  into  the  surf  to  welcome  us 
ashore.  No  other  unarmed  man  on  this 
earth  could  have  landed  there.  It  meant 
that  the  foundation-stone  of  civilisation  upon 
Tanna  was  already  laid.  Every  island  was 
once  like  Tanna ;  some  are  like  it  still.  But 
on  one  after  another  the  cannibal  spirit 
has  been  already  conquered;  schools  are 
planted  everywhere ;  and  neat  churches  and 
manses  gleam  through  the  palm-trees,  and 
signify  to  the  few  ships  which  wander  in 
those  seas  that  here  at  least  life  and  property 
are  safe.  At  Eromanga  I  went  to  see  the 
spot  on  the  beach  where  Williams  fell.  Hard 


1 82  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

by  were  the  graves  of  his  murdered  succes- 
sors, Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gordon.  Their  almost 
immediate  successor,  Mr.  Robertson,  is  there 
to-day,  his  large  church  and  beautiful  manse 
within  a  stone-throw  of  the  place  where  these 
first  martyrs  died ;  his  leading  elder  the  son 
of  the  cannibal  who  murdered  Gordon.  This 
monster  left  three  sons;  they  are  all  elders 
of  the  Church,  and  life  is  as  safe  throughout 
that  island  to-day  as  in  England.  For  the 
first  year  of  their  life  in  Eromanga  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Robertson  lived  in  a  bullet-proof  stock- 
ade. They  left  it  only  under  cover  of  night 
for  a  few  yards,  and  on  few  occasions,  once 
to  bury  their  first-born  babe.  For  a  year 
they  never  saw  a  European.  Their  work 
was  to  let  the  people  look  at  them.  Their 
message  was  to  be  kind.  By-and-by  ac- 
quaintance was  picked  up  with  one  or  two 
natives ;  the  circle  of  influence  spread,  and 
after  years  of  extraordinary  patience  and  self- 
denial,  their  lives  again  and  again  hanging 
by  a  thread,  they  won  this  island  for  civilisa- 
tion and  Christianity. 

On  another  island,  where  the  missionary 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  183 

two  years  ago  used  to  see  the  smoke  of  the 
cannibal  feasts  from  his  door-step,  the  natives 
brought  me  their  spears  and  bows  and  poi- 
soned arrows.  "  We  do  not  need  them  now," 
they  said ;  "  the  missionary  has  taught  us  not 
to  kill." 

I  have  no  words  to  express  my  admiration 
for  these  men,  and,  may  I  say,  their  wives, 
their  even  more  heroic  wives ;  they  are  per- 
fect missionaries,  their  toil  has  paid  a  hun- 
dred times ;  and  I  count  it  one  of  the  privi- 
leges of  my  life  to  have  been  one  of  the  few 
eye-witnesses  of  their  work. 

As  to  the  calls  of  this  field  for  more  men, 
I  must  add  this.  It  is  a  proof  of  the  sound 
sense  of  the  New  Hebrides  missionaries,  that 
they  are  pretty  unanimous  in  agreeing  that, 
considering  the  needs  of  the  rest  of  the 
world,  they  have  already  a  quite  fair  portion 
of  workers.  The  staff,  of  course,  could  be 
doubled  or  trebled  to-morrow  with  great 
advantage,  but  the  missionaries  do  not  ask 
it.  With  their  present  resources  and  the 
number  of  native  teachers  who  are  in  train- 
ing, they  hope  in  time  to  cover  these  islands 


1 84  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

with  mission  stations  by  themselves.  I  con- 
fess these  are  the  least  greedy  missionaries  I 
ever  heard  of. 

I  am  sorry  that,  owing  to  the  shortness  of 
my  visit  to  China,  I  should  feel  it  a  pure  pre- 
sumption to  say  almost  anything  about  this. 
the  greatest  mission  field  in  the  world. 
What  I  can  offer  is  but  a  surface  impression, 
and  I  warn  you  beforehand  it  is  little  worth. 
From  the  old  standpoint  the  work  in  China 
seems  to  be  splendid  ;  men  and  women  from 
every  Christian  Church  in  the  world  are 
busy  all  over  the  land,  and  small  congrega- 
tions of  native  Christians  are  springing  up 
everywhere  along  their  track.  The  industry 
and  devotion  of  the  workers  —  Roman 
Catholic,  Episcopalian,  Congregational,  Pres- 
byterian, Wesleyan,  and  a  host  of  others  — 
is  beyond  all  praise,  and  there  is  not  one  of 
the  missionaries  who  will  not  tell  you  he  is 
encouraged,  that  he  sees  some  fruit,  and  that 
the  future  is  full  of  hope.  There  seems  to 
be  great  care,  moreover,  in  the  admission  to 
the  Churches  of  native  Christians,  and  the 
belief  in  education  and  in  medical  missions 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  185 

is  widely  rooted.  But  from  the  ideal  of  a 
Christian  evolution,  there  remains  very  much 
to  criticise  —  happily  less  in  the  direction  of 
commission  than  of  omission.  This  band  of 
missionaries  —  I  speak  not  of  this  society  or 
of  that,  for  the  work  of  each  separate  society 
is  compact  enough  in  itself,  but  of  the  army 
as  a  whole  —  is  no  steady  phalanx  set  on  a 
fixed  campaign,  but  a  disordered  host  of  gue- 
rillas recruited  from  all  denominations,  wear- 
ing all  uniforms,  and  waging  a  random  fight. 
Some  are  equipped  with  obsolete  weapons, 
some  with  modern  armament ;  but  they  pos- 
sess no  common  programme  or  consistent 
method.  Besides  being  confusing  to  the 
Chinese,  this  means  great  waste  of  power, 
great  loss  of  cumulative  effect.  This,  of 
course,  is  inevitable  at  first,  and  it  is  not  the 
sin  of  the  missionaries,  but  of  Christendom ; 
and,  after  the  late  Shanghai  conference,  there 
is  more  than  a  hope  that  even  this  in  time 
may  be  remedied.  But  what  one  would 
really  like  to  see  in  addition  to  greater  con- 
centration, would  be  a  more  serious  recon- 
sideration of  the  manner  of  approach  and 


1 86  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

the  form  of  message  most  suited  to  the 
Chinese  mind  and  nature  and  tradition,  and 
some  further  contribution  to  the  question 
how  far  its  form  of  Christianity  is  to  be 
Western,  or  how  far  a  Chinese  basis  is  pos- 
sible or  permissible.  These  questions  might 
be  left  to  adjust  themselves  but  for  one  most 
serious  fact:  the  converts  in  China,  in  the 
majority  of  districts,  are  almost  exclusively 
drawn  at  present  from  the  lower  classes. 
There  are  exceptions,  but  the  educated 
classes  as  a  whole,  the  merchants  and  the 
mandarins,  remain,  I  understand,  almost 
wholly  untouched.  There  is  something 
wrong  if  this  be  the  case.  And  leaving  the 
present  machinery  to  do  the  good  work  it  is 
doing  among  the  poor,  I  would  join  with  the 
best  of  the  missionaries  in  arguing  for  a  few 
Rabbis  to  be  sent  to  China,  or  to  be  picked 
from  our  fine  scholars  already  there,  who 
would  quietly  reconnoitre  the  whole  situa- 
tion, and  shape  the  teaching  of  the  country 
along  well-considered  lines  —  men,  especially, 
who  would  lay  themselves  out  through  edu- 
cation, lectures,  preaching,  and  literature  to 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  187 

reach  the  intellect  of  the  Empire.  That 
some  men  are  aiming  at  this,  and  doing  it 
splendidly,  we  are  already  well  aware.  It  is 
the  direct  policy  of  many  missionaries  and 
even  of  whole  societies.  But  it  is  these  mis- 
sionaries themselves  who  are  crying  out  for 
more  of  it.  Men  will  not  take  the  trouble  to 
enquire  what  some  of  these  societies  are 
really  aiming  at  and  really  doing,  and,  in 
ignorance  of  either,  they  regard  the  whole 
missionary  work  as  a  waste  of  time  and 
money.  The  things  also  which  one  hears  of 
missionaries,  in  talking  with  the  business 
men  of  the  Eastern  ports :  the  contempt, 
the  charges  of  inefficiency,  impracticableness, 
and  general  uselessness,  are  enough  to  make 
any  traveller,  not  well  on  his  guard,  renounce 
the  mission  cause  for  ever.  These  impres- 
sions are  reimported  into  this  country  by 
ninety  out  of  every  hundred  men  who  return 
home  from  the  great  commercial  houses  of 
the  East,  and  they  build  up  a  public  opinion 
against  foreign  missions  most  wanton  and 
most  false.  As  a  rule  these  critics  have 
never  had  ten  minutes'  serious  talk  with  a 


i88  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

missionary  in  their  lives.  If  they  had,  they 
would  find  two  things.  First,  that  there 
were  some  missionaries  a  thousand  times 
worse  in  folly  and  incompetence  than  they 
had  ever  imagined ;  and,  secondly,  that  there 
were  others,  and  these  by  far  the  greater 
majority,  than  whom  no  wiser,  saner,  more 
practical  men  could  be  found  in  any  of  the 
business  houses  of  the  world.  It  is  men  of 
this  latter  class,  and  not  merely  the  passing 
traveller,  who  are  calling  out  to-day  for  more 
scientific  work  and  more  rational  methods  in 
the  mission  field.  They  are  perfectly  aware 
that  the  evangelisation  of  China  is  not  a 
mere  carrying  of  the  Gospel  to  illiterate  and 
heathen  savages  ;  and  that  perfect  knowledge 
both  of  the  modes  of  thought  of  the  people 
and  of  the  true  genius  of  Christianity  is 
needed  to  direct  a  campaign  that  will  be 
permanently  effective  there.  The  mission- 
ary who  is  an  educationist,  who  has  some 
scientific  and  philosophic  training,  who  knows 
something  of  sociology  and  political  economy, 
and  who  will  apply  these  in  Christian  forms 
to  China,  is  the  man  most  needed  there  at 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  189 

the  present  hour.  For  it  is  to  be  remem- 
bered that  this  is  a  case  of  arrested  motion, 
and  that  the  most  natural  development,  per- 
haps the  only  possible  one,  certainly  the  only 
permanent  one,  will  be  one  which  is  a  con- 
tinuation of  that  already  begun  rather  than 
one  entirely  abnormal  and  foreign. 

It  was  new  to  me,  though  I  ought  to  have 
known  it  before,  that  the  Chinese,  instead  of 
looking  up  to  Europeans,  regard  them  as  a 
most  inferior  and  even  barbaric  people  — 
clever,  certainly,  in  a  few  directions,  but  with 
no  sort  of  authority  to  instruct  a  Celestial. 
In  most  mission  fields  the  missionary  has  a 
platform  simply  in  the  fact  that  he  is  a  white 
man,  that  he  came  in  a  steamship,  and  wears 
a  hat ;  but  the  Chinaman  has  no  such  hallu- 
cination. He  listens  to  a  European  mission- 
ary much  as  a  London  crowd  would  listen  to 
a  Red  Indian  —  half  curious,  half  amused,  but 
wholly  contemptuous  as  to  his  pretension  to 
teach  him  anything.  It  is  the  deliberate 
opinion  of  many  men  who  know  China  in- 
timately, who  are  sympathetic  with  mission- 
aries, who  are  even  missionaries  themselves, 


190  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

that  half  of  the  preaching,  and  especially  the 
itinerating  preaching,  now  being  carried  on 
throughout  the  Empire  is  absolutely  useless. 
Some  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  it  even  does 
harm,  that  its  ignorance  and  general  quality 
make  it  almost  an  impertinence.  In  New 
York  I  met  an  influential  Christian  layman 
who  had  just  returned  from  a  visit  to  China, 
where  his  son  was  a  missionary;  and  he 
assured  me  that  he  meant  to  devote  this 
entire  winter  to  opening  the  eyes  of  the 
American  Churches  to  the  futility  and  false- 
ness of  method  of  much  that  was  being  done 
—  being  done  in  perfect  good  faith  —  by 
worthy  men  and  worthy  women,  to  convert 
the  people  of  China.  I  cannot  verify  this 
criticism  ;  I  merely  record  it.  But  at  a  time 
when  the  loud  cry  for  hundreds  of  more  lay- 
men to  pour  into  China  is  sounding  over 
this  land  the  warning  ought  at  least  to  be 
heard.  I  go  further.  This  call  is  frequently 
uttered  in  such  terms  as  to  take  almost  an 
unfair  advantage  of  a  certain  class  of  Chris- 
tians —  uttered  with  a  harrowing  importunity 
and  sensationalism  of  appeal  which  when  it 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  191 

falls  upon  a  tender  conscience  or  an  excited 
mind,  makes  it  seem  blasphemy  to  decline. 
The  kind  of  missionary  secured  by  this  pro- 
cess, to  say  the  least,  is  neither  the  wisest 
nor  the  best ;  and  not  only  China  needs  to 
be  protected  from  these  men,  but  they  need  to 
be  protected  from  themselves  and  from  those 
who,  in  genuine  but  unbalanced  zeal,  appeal 
to  them  —  protected  by  sober  statements 
from  sober  men,  who  love  the  word  of  God, 
and  the  souls  of  men  not  less,  but  who  under- 
stand both  better. 

I  pass  now  to  a  country  where  the  situa- 
tion is  more  delicate  still.  Japan  is  the  most 
interesting  country  in  the  world  at  this 
moment.  The  past  never  witnessed  a  birth 
of  a  civilised  nation  so  remarkable,  so  orderly, 
so  sudden.  Within  the  lifetime  of  all  of  us 
the  Japanese  were  a  wholly  unilluminated 
race.  They  kept  their  doors  shut  against 
outside  influence  of  every  kind.  No  for- 
eigner could  even  enter  the  land.  To-day 
all  is  changed.  They  sent  envoys  to  France, 
who  brought  back  law ;  others  to  Germany, 
who  gave  them  a  military  organisation. 


192  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

From  England  they  borrowed  a  navy;  from 
America,  a  system  of  national  education. 
From  the  civilised  world  in  general  they  im- 
ported a  most  perfect  telegraph  and  postal 
system,  railways  and  tramways,  the  electric 
light,  Universities,  technical  colleges,  and, 
within  the  last  few  months,  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment and  a  vote.  The  Japanese  have  set 
themselves  up,  in  short,  with  all  the  material 
and  machinery  of  an  advanced  and  rising 
civilised  State  —  all  the  material  except  one. 
They  have  no  religion.  As  was  inevitable, 
heathenism  has  been  abolished,  and,  as  al- 
ready said,  the  people  are  in  the  unique  posi- 
tion at  present  of  prospecting  for  a  religion. 
Now,  this  last  fact  having  become  some- 
what known,  Japan  to-day  presents  the 
spectacle  of  having  already  within  its  borders 
representatives  from  every  Church  in  Chris- 
tendom prospecting  for  converts.  Even  the 
politicians  being  fairly  agreed  —  and  this  in 
itself  is  most  striking  —  that  some  sort  of 
religion  is  necessary,  these  representatives 
are  eagerly  listened  to,  and  get  a  perfectly 
honest  chance. 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  193 

The  noblest  building  in  the  capital  of 
Japan  is  the  Cathedral  of  the  Greek  Church. 
Roman  Catholics  are  there,  Unitarians  are 
there,  Episcopalians  of  different  degrees  of 
height  and  Presbyterians  of  different  degrees 
of  breadth,  and  Methodists  of  different 
degrees  of  heat,  and  Baptists  and  Indepen- 
dents, and  Theosophists  and  Spiritualists, 
and  every  sect  and  church  and  denomination 
under  heaven.  The  issue  will  be  one  of  the 
most  interesting  events  in  ecclesiastical  his- 
tory. For  there  is  no  favouritism  and  no 
prejudice.  When  the  result  is  known,  it  will 
be  the  purest  possible  case  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest. 

One  cannot  at  all  say  at  present  who  has 
it.  It  will  be  some  sort  of  Christianity; 
probably  not  now  the  Roman  Catholic  or  the 
Greek;  and  what  makes  the  situation  so 
extremely  interesting  and  the  hour  so  over- 
whelmingly important,  is  that  every  Christian 
man,  and  every  Christian  book,  and  every 
Christian  stroke  of  work  that  are  given  to 
Japan  have  an  immediate  and  almost  palpa- 
ble influence  upon  this  problem.  Such  is 

13 


194  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

the  mood  and  such  is  the  malleability  of  this 
nation  at  the  present  hour,  that  if  a  Christian 
of  great  size  arose  to-morrow,  either  among 
the  Japanese  themselves  or  among  the 
European  missionaries,  he  could  almost  give 
the  country  its  religion.  If  there  be  here 
one  prophet,  or  half  a  prophet,  or  even  the 
making  of  half  a  prophet,  let  me  assure  him 
that  there  is  no  field  in  the  world  to-day, 
where,  so  far  as  man  can  judge,  his  best  years 
could  be  lived  to  so  great  a  purpose. 

With  the  mention  of  two  more  facts,  I  am 
done  with  Japan.  You  are  aware  that  the 
work  of  the  missionaries  has  been  so  success- 
ful that  there  are  already  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  Christian  converts  in  the  coun- 
try. Very  many  of  these  know  English  as 
well  as  we  do,  and  many  are  perfectly  read 
in  every  form  of  modern  European  literature, 
and  as  able  and  as  cultured  as  the  picked 
men  in  our  Universities.  The  man  among 
these  men  whom  I  found  was  most  regarded 
as  a  leader  of  thought  among  the  Japanese 
Christians,  made  to  me  this  striking  state- 
ment :  "  We  have  got,"  he  said,  "  our 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  195 

Christianity  almost  exclusively  from  the 
missionaries,  especially  from  the  American 
missionaries,  and  we  can  never  thank  them 
enough.  But  after  a  little  we  began  to  look 
at  it  for  ourselves,  and  we  made  a  discovery. 
We  found  that  Christianity  was  a  greater 
and  a  richer  thing  than  the  missionaries  told 
us.  Perhaps  they  themselves  were  second- 
handed.  At  any  rate,  we  must  henceforth 
look  at  it  for  ourselves.  We  want  Christian- 
ity, not  perhaps  necessarily  a  Western 
Christianity."  His  next  sentence  was  ex- 
pressed with  some  hesitation  and  much 
delicacy,  but  it  meant  this  —  "In  the  past 
they  have  helped  us  much  ;  but  .  .  .  they 
may  now  .  .  .  go." 

In  justice  to  the  missionaries,  let  me  say 
that  one  or  two  of  the  few  whom  I  met  were 
quite  aware  that  this  feeling  existed  towards 
some  of  them  ;  and  they  also  knew  its  cause ; 
others  knew  that  the  Japanese  were  begin- 
ning to  think  them  de  trop,  but  they  attrib- 
uted it  to  conceit,  and  to  the  general 
anti-English  reaction  lately  set  in  in  all 
departments.  But  all  were  agreed  that  the 


196  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

Japanese  church  could  not  yet  be  left  to 
stand  alone.  What  exactly  my  critic  would 
have  replied,  or  rather  how  exactly  he  would 
have  qualified  by  further  statement  of  his 
meaning,  may  possibly  be  inferred  from  the 
other  circumstances  which  I  wish  to  name. 
It  happened  in  Tokio  that  I  had  the  privi- 
lege of  addressing  some  thirty  or  forty 
Japanese  Christian  pastors.  At  the  close  I 
asked  them  if  they  had  any  message  they 
would  like  me  to  take  home  with  me  to  the 
Churches  here  or  in  America.  They  ap- 
pointed a  spokesman,  who  stood  up  and  told 
me,  in  their  name,  that  there  were  two  things 
they  would  like  me  to  say.  The  one  was, 
"  Tell  them  to  send  us  one  six  thousand 
dollar  missionary,  rather  than  ten  two  thou- 
sand dollar  missionaries."  But  the  second 
request  went  deeper.  I  again  give  the 
exact  words  —  "  Tell  them,"  he  said,  "  that 
we  want  them  to  send  us  no  more  doctrines. 
Japan  wants  Christ." 

I  trust  the  narrative  of  these  two  facts  will 
not  be  taken  as  a  reproach  to  the  mission- 
aries. If  they  represent  a  true  feeling,  it  is 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  197 

rather  to  their  lasting  honour  that  in  a  few 
years  they  should  have  taught  the  native 
Christians  to  see  so  far.  Of  the  actual  mis- 
sion work  in  Japan  I  can  say  nothing,  for  I 
was  only  a  few  days  there.  But  if  I  were  to 
judge  from  the  Japanese  converts  whom  I 
met,  I  would  question  whether  any  mission 
work  in  the  world  had  ever  produced  fruit  of 
so  fine  a  quality.  How  deep  it  is,  how  per- 
manent it  is,  remain  for  the  test  of  time  to 
declare ;  but  the  immediate  outlook,  though 
disheartening  possibly  to  individual  mission- 
aries, seems  to  me  one  of  the  richest  hope 
and  promise. 

I  had  meant  in  closing  to  turn  to  Australia 
and  make  a  bid  for  able  men  for  that  Greater 
Britain,  but  there  is  only  time  for  a  word. 
Composed  largely  of  men  whom  the  rush  for 
wealth  has  drawn  from  an  older  civilisation, 
the  Church's  problem  in  that  colossal  conti- 
nent —  you  are  aware  it  is  as  big  as  Europe 
—  is  to  establish  the  new  civilisation  in  truth 
and  righteousness.  Who,  where  every  man 
is  making  money,  is  to  make  just  laws,  to  raise 
social  standards,  to  purify  political  ideals? 


198  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

Two  kinds  of  ministers  are   required  to  be 
directly  or  indirectly  the  leaders  of  this  work. 

(1)  Men  of  the  highest  culture  and  ability 
as  ministers  for  the  large  towns;  men  who 
are   preachers   and   students.     There  is   no 
more   influential   sphere   in  the  world  than 
that  open  to  a  cultured  preacher  in  one  of 
the  capital  cities  of  Australia.     His  influence 
will  tell  upon  the  whole  colony  almost  imme- 
diately, and  as  a  public  man  he  will  have 
opportunities  of  giving  a  tone  and  direction 
even  to  political  life  such  as  no  one  at  home 
possesses.     At  this  moment  there  are  some 
three  or  four  vacant  churches  of  the  very  first 
rank   which  must  be   supplied  from  home; 
and  if  these  are  shut  to  students  or  proba- 
tioners, any  man    of   strength  in    that    new 
land  can  raise  a  minor  charge  to  an  equal 
place  within  two  or  three  years'  time. 

(2)  The  second  kind  of  man  that  is  wanted, 
and  he  is  wanted  not  by  the  dozen,  but  by 
the  score,  is  the  bush  minister.     This  man 
must   be   a   man;   he   must   be    ready,    and 
adaptable ;  he  may  be  as   unprofessional  as 
he  pleases,  but  he  must  be  a  Christian  gen- 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  199 

tleman.  His  work  will  be  to  keep  up  an 
occasional  service  at  some  half-dozen  wooden 
chapels  —  oases  in  the  wilderness  of  forest 
and  scrub  —  or  to  hold  services  in  barns  or, 
on  great  occasions,  in  some  village  church. 
You  will  see  why  I  have  allocated  the  man 
who  is  the  student  to  the  city.  This  man 
cannot  study,  or  cannot  study  much.  He  is 
the  evangelist,  the  other  the  teacher. 

If  one  saw  a  single  navvy  trying  to  remove 
a  mountain,  the  desolation  of  the  situation 
would  be  appalling.  Most  of  us  have  seen  a 
man,  or  two,  or  a  hundred  or  two  —  minis- 
ters, missionaries,  Christian  laymen  —  at  work 
upon  the  higher  evolution  of  the  world  ;  but 
it  is  when  one  sees  them  by  the  thousand  in 
every  land,  and  in  every  tongue,  and  the 
mountain  honey-combed  and  slowly  crum- 
bling, on  each  of  its  frowning  sides,  that  the 
majesty  of  the  missionary  work  fills  and 
inspires  the  mind. 

*  •  •  •  • 

Gentlemen,  finally,  what  a  field  the  world 
is  for  any  man  who  means,  as  Goethe  says,  to 


200  THE   PROBLEM   OF 

be  a  hammer  and  not  an  anvil !  We  have 
looked  down  only  three  or  four  of  the  vistas 
of  useful  work  which  in  every  region  of  the 
earth  are  opening  up ;  but  how  attractive, 
how  alluring  each  of  them  is  to  the  man  with 
a  generous  purpose  in  his  soul !  There  is 
one  thing  for  which  I  love  the  very  sound  of 
the  word  Evolution — its  immense  hope,  its 
indescribable  faith.  Darwin's  great  discovery, 
or  the  discovery  which  he  brought  into 
prominence,  is  the  same  as  Galileo's  —  that 
the  world  moves.  The  Italian  prophet  said 
it  moved  from  West  to  East,  the  English 
philosopher  said  it  moved  from  low  to  high. 
The  message  of  science  to  this  age  is  that  all 
Nature  is  on  the  side  of  the  men  or  of  the 
nation  who  is  trying  to  rise.  An  ascending 
energy  is  in  the  universe,  and  the  whole 
moves  on  with  the  mighty  idea  and  anticipa- 
tion of  the  Ascent  of  Man. 

The  progress  of  the  past  seems  almost  to 
guarantee  the  future.  Here  there  may  be 
retardation,  there  obstruction,  but  somehow 
we  have  learned  to  believe  that  the  mass 
moves  on.  Yesterday  saw  divergence  from 


FOREIGN   MISSIONS  201 

the  faith,  to-day  mourned  persecution ;  but 
somehow  to-morrow  we  feel  that  the  sun  will 
shine  again  on  a  Kingdom  of  God  which  has 
also  somehow  grown.  After  all,  this  instru- 
ment of  science,  this  discoverer  of  a  secret 
motion  in  the  world,  this  great  calmer  of 
faithless  men,  this  rebuker  of  quaking  saints, 
is  a  religious  teacher  —  we  work  with  it,  we 
look  with  its  eyes,  we  hear  its  voice,  and  it 
says  with  Browning  — 

"  God  's  in  His  Heaven, 

All 's  right  with  the  world." 


The   Contribution 
of  Science  to 
Christianity 


The     Contribution     of 
Science   to   Christianity 

THERE  is  nothing  more  inspiring  just 
now  to  the  religious  mind  than  the 
expansion  of  the  intellectual  area  of  Chris- 
tianity. Christianity  seemed  for  a  time  to 
have  ceased  to  adapt  itself  to  the  widening 
range  of  secular  knowledge,  and  the  think- 
ing world  had  almost  left  its  side.  But  the 
expansion  of  Christianity  can  never  be  alto- 
gether contemporaneous  with  the  growth 
of  knowledge.  For  new  truth  must  be  so- 
lidified by  time  before  it  can  be  built  into 
the  eternal  truth  of  the  Christian  system. 
Yet,  sooner  or  later,  the  conquest  comes ; 
sooner  or  later,  whether  it  be  art  or  music, 
history  or  philosophy,  Christianity  utilises 
the  best  that  the  world  finds,  and  gives  it 
a  niche  in  the  temple  of  God. 

To  the  student  of  God's  ways,  who  rev- 


206        THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

erently  marks  His  progressive  revelation 
and  scans  the  horizon  for  each  new  fulfil- 
ment, the  field  of  science  presents  just  now 
a  spectacle  of  bewildering  interest.  To  say 
that  he  regards  it  with  expectation  is  feebly 
to  realise  the  dignity  and  import  of  the  time. 
He  looks  at  science  with  awe.  It  is  the 
thing  that  is  moving,  unfolding.  It  is  the 
breaking  of  a  fresh  seal.  It  is  the  new 
chapter  of  the  world's  history.  What  it 
contains  for  Christianity,  or  against  it,  he 
knows  not.  What  it  will  do  or  undo  —  for 
in  the  fulfilling  it  may  undo  —  he  cannot 
tell.  The  plot  is  just  at  its  thickest  as  he 
opens  the  page;  the  problems  are  more  in 
number  and  more  intricate  than  they  have 
ever  been  before,  and  he  waits  almost  with 
excitement  for  the  next  development. 

And  yet  this  attitude  of  Christianity 
towards  science  is  as  free  from  false  hope 
as  it  is  from  false  fear.  It  has  no  false  fear, 
for  it  knows  the  strange  fact  that  this  plot 
is  always  at  its  thickest ;  and  its  hope  of  a 
quick  solution  is  without  extravagance,  for 
it  has  learned  the  slowness  of  God's  unfold- 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY     207 

ing  and  His  patient  tempering  of  revelation 
to  the  young  world  which  has  to  bear  the 
strain.  But,  for  all  this,  we  cannot  open 
this  new  and  closely  written  page  as  if  it  had 
little  to  give  us.  With  nature  as  God's 
work  ;  with  man,  God's  finest  instrument,  as 
its  investigator;  with  a  multitude  of  the 
finest  of  these  finest  instruments,  in  labora- 
tory, field,  and  study,  hourly  engaged  upon 
this  book,  exploring,  deciphering,  sifting, 
and  verifying  —  it  is  impossible  that  there 
should  not  be  a  solid,  original,  and  ever- 
increasing  gain.  Add  to  this  man's  known 
wish  to  know  more,  and  God's  wish  that  he 
should  know  more  —  for  nature  is  fuller  of 
nothing  than  of  invitations  to  learn  —  and 
we  shall  see  how  true  it  is  that  nature  has 
but  to  be  asked,  to  give  her  best. 

The  one  thing  to  be  careful  about  in  ap- 
proaching nature  is,  that  we  really  come  to 
be  tauerht;  and  the  same  attitude  is  honour- 

O 

ably  due  to  its  interpreter,  science.  Religion 
is  probably  only  learning  for  the  first  time 
how  to  approach  science.  Their  former 
intercourse,  from  faults  on  both  sides,  and 


208       THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

these  mainly  due  to  juvenility,  is  not  a  thing 
to  remember.  After  the  first  quarrel  —  for 
they  began  the  centuries  hand  in  hand  — the 
question  of  religion  to  science  was  simply 
"  How  dare  you  speak  at  all  ? "  Then,  as 
science  held  to  its  right  to  speak  just  a  little, 
the  question  became,  "  What  new  menace  to 
our  creed  does  your  latest  discoveiy  por- 
tend ? "  By-and-by  both  became  wiser,  and 
the  coarser  conflict  ceased.  Then  we  find 
religion  suggesting  a  compromise,  and  ask- 
ing simply  what  particular  adjustment  to  its 
last  hypothesis  science  would  demand.  But 
we  do  not  speak  now  of  the  right  to  be  heard, 
or  of  menaces  to  our  faith,  or  even  of  com- 
promises. Our  question  is  a  much  maturer 
one  —  we  ask  what  contribution  science  has 
to  bestow,  what  good  gift  the  wise  men  are 
bringing  now  to  lay  at  the  feet  of  our  Christ. 
This  question  marks  an  immense  advance  in 
the  relation  between  science  and  Christianity, 
and  we  should  be  careful  to  sustain  it.  Noth- 
ing is  more  easily  thrown  out  of  working 
order  than  the  balance  between  different 
spheres  of  thought.  The  least  assumption 


SCIENCE   TO    CHRISTIANITY     209 

of  superiority  on  the  part  of  one,  the  least 
hint  of  a  challenge,  even  a  suggestion  of  in- 
dependence, may  provoke  a  quarrel.  In  one 
sense  religion  is  independent  of  science,  but 
in  another  it  is  not.  For  science  is  not  inde- 
pendent of  religion,  and  religion  dare  not 
leave  it.  One  notices  sometimes  a  disposi- 
tion in  religious  writers,  not  only  to  make 
light  of  the  claims  of  science,  to  smile  at  its 
attempts  to  help  them,  to  despise  its  patron- 
age, but  even  to  taunt  it  with  its  impotence 
to  touch  the  higher  problems  of  life  and 
being  at  all.  Now  science  has  feelings. 
This  impotence  is  a  fact,  but  it  is  the  limita- 
tion simply  of  its  function  in  the  scheme  of 
thought ;  and  to  taunt  it  with  its  insufficiency 
to  perform  other  functions  is  a  vulgar  way 
to  make  it  jealous  of  that  which  does  per- 
form them.  We  live  in  an  intellectual  com- 
mune, and  owe  too  much  to  each  other  to 
reflect  on  a  neighbour's  poverty,  even  when 
it  puts  on  appearances. 

The  result  of  the  modern  systematic  study 
of  nature  has  been  to  raise  up  in  our  midst 
a  body  of  truth  with  almost  unique  claims  to 

14 


210        THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

acceptance.  The  grounds  of  this  acceptance 
are  laid  bare  to  all  the  world.  There  is 
nothing  esoteric  about  science.  It  has  no 
secrets.  Its  facts  can  be  seen  and  handled  : 
they  are  facts ;  they  are  nature  itself.  Apart 
therefore  from  their  attractiveness  or  utility, 
men  feel  that  here  at  last  they  have  some- 
thing to  believe  in,  something  independent  of 
opinion,  prejudice,  self-interest,  or  tradition. 
This  feeling  is  a  splendid  testimony  to  man 
as  well  as  to  nature.  And  we  do  not  grudge 
to  science  the  vigour  and  devotion  of  its  stu- 
dents, for,  like  all  true  devotion,  it  is  founded 
on  an  intense  faith.  Now  the  mere  presence 
of  this  body  of  truth,  so  solid,  so  transparent, 
so  verifiable,  immediately  affects  all  else  that 
lies  in  the  field  of  knowledge.  And  it 
affects  it  in  different  ways.  Some  things  it 
scatters  to  the  winds  at  once.  They  have 
been  the  birthright  of  mankind  for  ages,  it 
may  be ;  their  venerableness  matters  not, 
they  must  go.  And  the  power  of  the  new- 
comer is  so  self-evident  that  they  require  no 
telling,  but  disappear  of  themselves.  In  this 
way  the  modern  world  has  been  rid  of  a 
hundred  superstitions. 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY     211 

Among  other  things  which  have  been 
brought  to  this  bar  is  Christianity.  It 
knows  it  can  approve  itself  to  science;  but 
it  is  taken  by  surprise,  and  therefore  begs 
time.  It  will  honestly  look  up  its  credentials, 
and  adjust  itself,  if  necessary,  to  the  new 
relation.  Now  this  is  the  position  of  theol- 
ogy at  the  present  moment.  The  purifica- 
tion of  religion,  Herbert  Spencer  tells  us, 
has  always  come  from  science.  In  this 
case  it  is  largely  true.  And  theology  pro- 
ceeds by  asking  science  what  it  demands, 
and  then  borrows  its  instruments  to  carry 
out  the  improvements.  This  loan  of  the 
instruments  constitutes  the  first  great  con- 
tribution of  science  to  religion. 

What  are  these  instruments  ?  We  shall 
name  two  —  the  Scientific  Method  and  the 
Doctrine  of  Evolution.  The  first  is  the  in- 
strument for  the  interpretation  of  Nature ; 
the  second  is  given  us  as  the  method  of 
Nature  itself.  With  the  first  of  these  we 
shall  deal  formally ;  the  second  will  present 
itself  in  various  shapes  as  we  proceed. 

In  emphasising  the  scientific  method  as 


212        THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

a  contribution  from  science  to  Christianity, 
it  is  not  to  be  understood  that  science  has 
an  exclusive,  or  even  a  prior  claim,  either  to 
its  discovery  or  possession.  Along  with  the 
germs  of  all  great  things,  it  is  found  in  the 
Bible  ;  and  theologians  all  along  have  fallen 
into  its  vein  at  times,  though  they  have  sel- 
dom pursued  it  long  or  with  entire  abandon- 
ment. There  are  examples  of  work  done  in 
modern  theology,  German  and  English,  by 
the  use  of  this  method,  which  for  the  purity, 
consistency,  and  reverence  with  which  it  is 
applied  are  not  surpassed  by  anything  that 
physical  science  has  produced.  At  the  same 
time,  this  is  par  excellence  the  method  of  sci- 
ence. The  perfecting  of  the  instrument, 
the  most  lucid  exhibition  of  its  powers,  the 
education  in  its  use,  above  all  the  intellect- 
ual revolution  which  has  compelled  its  appli- 
cation in  every  field  of  knowledge,  we  owe 
to  natural  science.  Theology  has  had  its 
share  in  this  great  movement,  how  much  we 
need  not  ask,  or  seek  to  prove.  The  day  is 
past  for  quarrelling  over  rights  of  discovery; 
and  whether  we  owe  the  scientific  method 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY     213 

to  Job  and  Paul,  or  to  Bacon  and  Darwin,  is 
just  the  kind  of  question  which  the  posses- 
sion of  this  instrument  would  warn  us  not 
to  touch. 

To  see  what  the  scientific  method  has  done 
for  Christianity,  we  have  only  to  ask  our- 
selves what  it  is.  The  things  which  it 
insists  upon  are  mainly  two  —  the  value  of 
facts,  and  the  value  of  laws.  From  the  first 
of  these  comes  the  integrity  of  science ;  from 
the  second  its  beauty  and  force.  On  bare 
facts  science  from  first  to  last  is  based. 
Bacon's  contribution  to  science  was  simply 
that  he  vindicated  the  place  and  power,  the 
eternal  worth,  of  facts;  Darwin's,  that  he 
supplied  it  with  facts.  Now  if  Christianity 
possesses  anything  it  possesses  facts.  So 
long  as  the  facts  were  presented  to  the  world 
Christianity  spread  with  marvellous  rapidity. 
But  there  came  a  time  when  the  facts  were 
less  exhibited  to  men  than  the  evidence  for 
the  facts.  Theology,  that  is  to  say,  began 
to  rest  on  authority.  Men  or  manuscripts 
were  quoted  as  authorities  for  these  facts, 
always  with  a  loss  of  impressiveness,  a  loss 


214        THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

increasing  rapidly  as  time  distanced  the  facts 
themselves.  Then  as  the  facts  became  more 
and  more  remote  the  Churches  became  the 
authorities  rather  than  individual  witnesses, 
and  this  was  accompanied  by  a  still  further 
loss  of  power.  And  the  surest  proof  of  the 
waning  influence  of  the  facts  themselves, 
and  the  extent  of  the  loss  incurred  by  the 
transfer  of  their  credential  to  authority,  is 
found  in  the  appeal,  which  quickly  followed, 
to  the  secular  arm.  The  facts,  ceasing  to 
be  their  own  warrant,  had  to  be  enforced  by 
the  establishment  of  judicial  relations  be- 
tween Church  and  State.  It  is  these  inter- 
mediaries between  the  facts  and  the  modern 
observer  that  stumble  science.  Its  method 
is  not  to  deal  with  persons  however  exalted, 
nor  with  creeds  however  admirable,  nor 
with  Churches  however  venerable.  It  will 
look  at  facts  and  at  facts  alone.  The  dan- 
gers, the  weakness,  the  unpracticableness  in 
some  cases  of  this  method,  are  well  known. 
Nevertheless  it  is  a  right  method.  It  is  the 
method  of  all  reformation ;  it  was  the  method 
of  the  Reformation.  The  Reformation  was 


SCIENCE  TO   CHRISTIANITY     215 

largely  a  revolt  against  intermediaries,  an 
appeal  to  facts.  Now  Christianity  is  learn- 
ing from  science  to  go  back  to  its  facts,  and 
it  is  going  back  to  facts.  Critics  in  every 
tongue  are  engaged  upon  the  facts;  travel- 
lers in  every  land  are  unveiling  facts ;  exe- 
getes  are  at  work  upon  the  words,  scholars 
upon  the  manuscripts  ;  sceptics,  believing  and 
unbelieving,  are  eliminating  the  not-facts; 
and  the  whole  field  is  alive  with  workers. 
And  the  point  to  mark  is  that  these  men  are 
not  manipulating,  but  verifying,  facts. 

There  is  one  portion  of  this  field  of  facts, 
however,  which  is  still  strangely  neglected, 
and  to  which  a  scientific  theology  may  turn 
its  next  attention.  The  evidence  for  Chris- 
tianity is  not  the  Evidences.  The  evidence 
for  Christianity  is  a  Christian.  The  unit  of 
physics  is  the  atom,  of  biology  the  cell,  of 
philosophy  the  man,  of  theology  the  Chris- 
tian. The  natural  man,  his  regeneration  by 
the  Holy  Spirit,  the  spiritual  man  and  his 
relations  to  the  world  and  to  God,  these  are 
the  modern  facts  for  a  scientific  theology. 
We  may  indeed  talk  with  science  on  its  own 


216        THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

terms  about  the  creation  of  the  world,  and 
the  spirituality  of  nature,  and  the  force  be- 
hind nature,  and  the  unseen  universe;  but 
our  language  is  not  less  scientific,  not  less 
justified  by  fact,  when  we  speak  of  the  work 
of  the  risen  Christ,  and  the  contemporary 
activities  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the  facts  of 
regeneration,  and  the  powers  which  are  freeing 
men  from  sin.  There  is  a  great  experiment 
which  is  repeated  every  day,  the  evidence  for 
which  is  as  accessible  as  for  any  fact  of 
science;  its  phenomena  are  as  palpable  as 
any  in  nature;  its  processes  are  as  expli- 
cable, or  as  inexplicable ;  its  purpose  is  as 
clear ;  and  yet  science  has  never  been  seri- 
ously asked  to  reckon  with  it,  nor  has  theol- 
ogy ever  granted  it  the  place  its  impressive 
reality  commands.  One  aim  of  a  scientific 
theology  will  be  to  study  conversion,  and 
restore  to  Christianity  its  most  powerful  wit- 
ness. When  men,  by  mere  absorption  in 
the  present,  refuse  to  consider  history,  or 
from  traditional  prejudice  take  refuge  in  the 
untrustworthiness  of  the  records,  it  is  unwise 
to  refer,  in  the  first  place  at  least,  to  phe- 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY    217 

nomena  which  are  centuries   old,   when  we 
have  the  same  among  us  now. 

But  not  less  essential,  in  the  scientific 
method,  than  the  examination  of  facts  is  the 
arrangement  of  them  under  laws.  And  the 
work  of  modern  science  in  this  direction  has 
resulted  in  its  grandest  achievement  —  the 
demonstration  of  the  uniformity  of  nature. 
This  doctrine  must  have  an  immediate  effect 
upon  the  entire  system  of  theology.  For 
one  thing,  the  contribution  of  the  spiritual 
world  to  the  uniformity  of  nature  has  yet  to 
be  made.  Not  that  the  natural  world  is  to 
include  the  spiritual,  but  that  a  higher  natural 
will  be  seen  to  include  both.  It  cannot  be 
said  that  Christianity  as  arranged  by  theology 
at  present  is  highly  natural,  nor  can  it  be 
said  to  be  unnatural.  In  that  relation  it  is 
simply  neutral.  The  question  of  naturalness 
or  the  reverse  is  one  which  has  not  hitherto 
at  all  concerned  it.  There  was  no  call  upon 
theology  to  make  its  presentation  of  itself 
with  a  view  to  nature,  and  therefore,  if  that 
is  an  advisable  thing,  or  a  feasible  thing,  it 
has  yet,  on  the  large  scale  at  least,  to  be  at- 


218        THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

tempted.  In  the  natural  world,  the  truth  of 
the  uniformity  of  nature  took  a  long  time  to 
grow.  No  one  in  the  first  instance  set  him- 
self to  establish  it.  Innumerable  workers  in 
innumerable  fields,  engaged  upon  different 
classes  of  facts,  found  a  mysterious  brother- 
hood of  common  laws.  Again  and  again, 
and  everywhere  again  and  again,  the  same 
familiar  lines  confronted  them,  few,  simple, 
and  unchangeable,  yet  each  with  a  vanishing 
trend  towards  an  upward  point,  hidden  as  yet 
in  mystery.  These  workers  did  not  formally 
consult  together  about  these  laws,  or  seek  to 
follow  them  beyond  the  line  of  sight.  Nor 
did  they  try  to  find  a  name  for  the  hidden 
point  to  which  all  converged.  But  there 
grew  up  amongst  them  a  sense  of  symmetry 
in  the  whole  which  found  expression  in  the 
formula,  which  is  now  the  postulate  of 
science  —  the  "uniformity  of  nature."  In 
the  same  way,  probably,  shall  we  one  day  see 
disclosed  the  uniformity  of  the  spiritual 
world.  The  earlier  work  had  to  be  accom- 
plished first,  the  scaffolding  for  the  inner 
temple  ;  but  when  the  whole  is  finished  there 


SCIENCE  TO   CHRISTIANITY    219 

will  be  nothing  in  the  spiritual  world  to  put 
the  mind  of  science  to  confusion.  The  laws 
of  both  as  they  radiate  upwards  will  meet  in  a 
common  cupola,  and  between  the  outer  and 
the  inner  courts  the  priests  of  nature  and  the, 
priests  of  God  will  go  in  and  out  together. 

There  may  be  laws,  or  actings,  in  the 
spiritual  world,  which  it  may  seem  to  some 
impossible  to  include  in  such  a  scheme. 
God  is  not,  in  theology,  a  Creator  merely, 
but  a  Father;  and  according  to  the  counsel 
of  His  own  will  He  may  act  in  different 
cases  in  different  ways.  To  which  the  reply 
is  that  this  also  is  law.  It  is  the  law  of  the 
Father,  the  law  of  the  paternal  relation,  the 
law  of  the  free-will ;  yet  not  an  exceptional 
law,  it  is  the  law  of  all  fathers  of  all  free- 
wills.  Besides,  if  in  the  private  Christian  life 
the  child  of  God  finds  dealings  which  are 
not  reducible  to  law,  grant  even  their  lawless- 
ness if  that  be  possible,  that  is  a  family 
matter,  a  relation  of  parent  and  child,  similar 
to  the  earthly  relation,  and  scarcely  the  kind 
of  case  to  be  referred  to  science.  Into  ordi- 
nary family  relations  science  rarely  feels 


220        THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

called  to  intrude ;  and  it  is  obvious  that  in 
dealing  with  this  class  of  cases  in  the 
spiritual  world,  science  is  attempting  a  thing 
which  in  the  natural  world  it  leaves  alone. 
If  ethics  chooses  to  take  up  these  questions, 
it  has  more  right  to  do  so ;  but  that  there 
should  be  a  reserve  in  the  spiritual  world  for 
God  acting  towards  His  children  in  a  way 
past  finding  out  is  what  would  be  expected 
from  the  mere  analogies  of  the  family.  It  is 
a  pity  this  distinction  between  the  paternal 
and  the  governmental  relation  of  God  is  not 
more  apprehended  by  science ;  for  there  is 
an  indelicacy  about  all  these  questions  which 
arises  from  ignorance  of  it  —  questions  con- 
cerning prayer  and  natural  law,  "  special 
providences,"  and  others  —  which  is  painful 
to  devout  people.  It  is  not  by  any  means 
that  religion  cannot  afford  to  have  these 
things  talked  of,  but  they  are  to  be  ap- 
proached in  privacy,  with  the  sympathy  and 
respect  due  to  family  affairs. 

The  relations  of  the  spiritual  man,  how 
ever,  are  not  all,  or  nearly  all,  in  this  de- 
partment. There  are  whole  classes  of  facts 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY    221 

in  the  outer  provinces  which  have  yet  to  be 
examined  and  arranged  under  appropriate 
laws.  The  intellectual  gain  to  Christianity 
of  such  a  process  will  be  obvious.  But  there 
is  also  a  practical  gain  to  the  religious  ex- 
perience of  not  less  moment.  Science  is 
nothing  if  not  practical,  and  the  scientific 
method  has  little  for  Christianity  after  all  if 
it  is  not  to  exalt  and  enrich  the  lives  of  its 
followers.  It  is  worth  while,  therefore,  taking 
a  single  example  of  its  practical  value. 

The  sense  of  lawlessness  which  pervades 
the  spiritual  world  at  present  reacts  in  many 
subtle  and  injurious  ways  upon  the  personal 
experience  of  Christians.  They  gather  the 
idea  that  things  are  managed  differently 
there  from  anywhere  else  —  less  strictly,  less 
consistently;  that  blessings  or  punishments 
are  dispensed  arbitrarily,  and  that  everything 
is  ordered  rather  by  a  Divine  discretion  than 
by  a  system  of  fixed  principle.  In  this 
higher  atmosphere  ordinary  sequences  are 
not  to  be  looked  for — cause  and  effect  are 
suspended  or  superseded.  Accordingly,  to 
descend  to  the  particular,  men  pray  for 


222        THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

things  which  they  are  quite  unable  to  re- 
ceive, or  altogether  unwilling  to  pay  the  price 
for.  They  expect  effects  without  touching 
the  preliminary  causes,  and  causes  without 
calculating  the  tremendous  nature  of  the 
effects.  There  is  nothing  more  appalling 
than  the  wholesale  way  in  which  unthinking 
people  plead  to  the  Almighty  the  richest  and 
most  spiritual  of  His  promises,  and  claim 
their  immediate  fulfilment,  without  them- 
selves fulfilling  one  of  the  conditions  either 
on  which  they  are  promised  or  can  possibly 
be  given.  If  the  Bible  is  closely  looked  into, 
it  will  probably  be  found  that  very  many  of 
the  promises  have  attached  to  them  a  condi- 
tion —  itself  not  unfrequently  the  best  part 
of  the  promise.  True  prayer  for  any  promise 
is  to  plead  for  power  to  fulfil  the  condition 
on  which  it  is  offered,  and  which,  being  ful- 
filled, is  in  that  act  given.  We  have  need, 
certainly  in  this  sense,  to  know  more  of 
prayer  and  natural  law.  And  science  could 
make  no  truer  contribution  to  modern 
Christianity  than  to  enforce  upon  us  all,  as 
unweariedly  as  in  nature,  the  law  of  causation 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY    223 

in  the  spiritual  life.  The  reason  why  so 
many  people  get  nothing  from  prayer  is  that 
they  expect  effects  without  causes;  and  this 
also  is  the  reason  why  they  give  it  up.  It  is 
not  irreligion  that  makes  men  give  up  prayer, 
but  the  uselessness  of  their  prayers. 

There  is  one  other  gain  to  Christianity  to 
be  expected  from  the  wider  use  of  the  scien- 
tific method  which  may  be  mentioned  in 
passing.  Besides  transforming  it  outwardly 
and  reforming  it  inwardly,  it  must  attract  an 
ever-increasing  band  of  workers  to  theology. 
There  is  a  charm  in  working  with  a  true 
method,  which,  once  felt,  becomes  for  ever 
irresistible.  The  activity  in  theology  at  the 
present  time  is  almost  limited,  and  the  en- 
thusiasm almost  wholly  limited,  to  those  who 
are  working  with  the  scientific  method. 
Round  the  islands  of  coral  skeletons  in  the 
Pacific  Ocean  there  is  a  belt  of  living  coral. 
Each  tiny  polyp  on  this  outermost  fringe, 
and  here  only,  secretes  a  solid  substance  from 
the  invisible  storehouse  of  the  sea,  and  lays 
down  its  life  in  adding  it  to  the  advancing 
reef.  So  science  and  so  theology  grow. 


224         THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

Through  these  workers  on  the  fringing  reef 
—  behind,  in  contact  with  the  great  solid, 
essential,  formulated  past;  before,  the  pro- 
found sea  of  unknown  truth  —  through  these 
workers,  and  through  these  alone  can  know- 
ledge grow.  The  phalanx  of  able,  busy,  and 
joyful  spirits  crowding  the  growing  belt  of 
each  modern  science  —  electricity,  for  ex- 
ample —  may  well  excite  the  envy  of  theology. 
And  it  is  the  method  that  attracts  them. 
And  every  day  theology  too,  as  it  knows  this 
method,  gets  busier  —  not  undermining  the 
old  reef,  nor  abandoning  it  to  make  a  new 
one,  but  adding  the  living  work  of  living 
men  to  this  essential,  formulated  past. 

We  are  warned  sometimes  that  this  method 
has  dangers,  and  told  not  to  carry  it  too  far. 
It  is  then  it  becomes  dangerous.  The  danger 
arises,  not  from  the  use  of  the  scientific 
method,  but  from  its  use  apart  from  the 
scientific  spirit.  For  these  two  are  not 
quite  the  same.  Some  men  use  the  scientific 
method,  but  not  in  the  scientific  spirit.  And 
as  science  can  help  Christianity  with  the 
former,  Christianity  may  perhaps  do  some- 


SCIENCE   TO    CHRISTIANITY    225 

thing  for  science  as  regards  the  latter. 
Christianity  is  certainly  wonderfully  tolerant 
of  all  this  upturning  in  theology,  wonderfully 
generous  and  patient  and  hopeful  upon  the 
whole.  And  so  just  is  the  remark  of  "  Nat- 
ural Religion,"  that  the  true  scientific  spirit 
and  the  Christian  spirit  are  one,  that  the 
Christian  world  is  probably  prepared  to 
accept  almost  anything  the  most  advanced 
theology  brings,  provided  it  be  a  joint  pro- 
duct of  the  scientific  spirit  —  the  fearlessness 
and  originality  of  the  one,  tempered  by  the 
modesty,  caution,  and  reverence  of  the  other. 
To  preserve  this  confidence,  and  to  keep 
this  spirit  pure,  is  a  sacred  duty.  There  is 
an  intellectual  covetousness  abroad  just  now 
which  is  neither  the  fruit  nor'the  friend  of  a 
scientific  age — a  haste  to  be  wise  which, 
like  the  haste  to  be  rich,  leads  men  into 
speculation  upon  indifferent  securities,  and 
can  only  end  in  fallen  fortunes.  Theology 
must  not  be  bound  up  with  such  speculation. 
"  If "  —  to  recall  one  of  the  fine  outbursts  of 
Bacon  —  "  if  there  be  any  humility  towards 
the  Creator,  any  reverence  for  or  disposition 

15 


226        THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

to  magnify  His  works,  any  charity  for  man 
and  anxiety  to  relieve  his  sorrows  and  neces- 
sities, any  love  of  truth  in  nature,  any  hatred 
of  darkness,  any  desire  for  the  purification  of 
the  understanding,  we  must  entreat  men 
again  and  again  to  discard,  or  at  least  set 
apart  for  the  while,  these  volatile  and  pre- 
posterous philosophies  which  have  preferred 
these  to  hypotheses,  led  experience  captive, 
and  triumphed  over  the  works  of  God ;  and 
to  approach  with  humility  and  veneration  to 
unroll  the  volume  of  creation,  to  linger  and 
meditate  therein,  and  with  minds  washed 
clean  from  opinions  to  study  it  in  purity  and 
integrity.  For  this  is  that  sound  and  lan- 
guage which  'went  forth  into  all  lands'  and 
did  not  incur  the  confusion  of  Babel ;  this 
should  men  study  to  be  perfect  in,  and,  be- 
coming again  as  little  children,  condescend 
to  take  the  alphabet  of  it  into  their  hands, 
and  spare  no  pains  to  search  and  unravel  the 
interpretation  thereof,  but  pursue  it  stren- 
uously and  persevere  even  unto  death."1 
The  one  safeguard  is  to  use  the  intellectual 

1  Works,  v.  132,  133. 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY     227 

method  in  sympathetic  association  with  the 
moral  spirit.  The  scientific  method  may 
bring  to  light  many  fresh  and  revolutionary 
ideas ;  the  scientific  spirit  will  see  that  they 
are  not  given  a  place  as  dogmas  in  their  first 
exuberance,  that  they  are  held  with  caution, 
and  abandoned  with  generosity  on  sufficient 
evidence.  The  scientific  method  may  secure 
many  new  and  unique  possessions;  the 
scientific  spirit  will  wear  its  honours  humbly, 
knowing  that  after  all  new  truth  is  less  the 
product  of  genius  than  the  daughter  of  time. 
And  in  its  splendid  progress  the  scientific 
method  will  find  some  old  lights  dim,  some 
cherished  doctrines  old-fashioned,  venerable 
authorities  superseded ;  the  scientific  spirit 
will  be  respectful  to  the  past,  checking  that 
mockery  at  the  old  which  those  who  lack  it 
make  unthinkingly,  and  remembering  that 
the  day  will  come  for  its  work  also  to  pass 
away. 

So  much  for  the  scientific  method.  Let 
us  now  consider  for  a  moment  one  or  two 
of  its  achievements.  Apart  from  the  usual 
reservations,  which  it  is  hoped  are  always 


228        THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

implied  —  that  science  is  only  in  its  infancy, 
that  the  scientific  method  is  almost  still  a 
novelty,  that  therefore  we  are  not  to  expect 
too  much  nor  to  be  absolutely  sure  of  what 
we  get  —  there  is  a  special  reason  in  this 
case  for  remembering  that  science  is  new. 
For  this  will  prepare  us  to  expect  its  contri- 
bution to  theology  —  its  contribution,  that 
is,  where  the  actual  subject-matter  of  laws 
and  discoveries  of  science  are  involved,  its 
method  —  in  one  direction  rather  than  in 
another,  and  in  certain  departments  rather 
than  in  others.  Itself  at  an  elementary 
stage,  we  should  be  wrong  to  look  for  any 
very  pronounced  contribution  as  yet  to  the 
higher  truths  of  religion.  We  should  ex- 
pect the  first  effect  among  the  elements  of 
religion.  We  should  expect  science  to  be 
fairly  decided  in  its  utterances  about  them, 
to  become  more  and  more  hesitating  as  it 
runs  up  the  range  of  Christian  doctrine,  and 
gradually  to  lapse  into  silence.  Proceeding 
upon  this  principle  we  should  go  back  at  once 
to  Genesis.  We  should  begin  with  the  begin- 
nings, and  expect  the  first  serious  contri- 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY     229 

bution  to  theology  on  the  doctrine  of  crea- 
tion. 

And  what  do  we  find?  We  find  that 
upon  this  subject  of  all  others  science  has 
most  to  offer  us.  It  comes  to  us  freighted 
with  vast  treasures  of  newly  noticed  facts, 
but  with  a  theory  which  by  many  thought- 
ful minds  has  been  accepted  as  the  method 
of  creation.  And,  more  than  this,  it  tells  us 
candidly  it  has  failed  —  and  the  failures  of 
science  are  among  its  richest  contributions 
to  Christianity  —  it  has  failed  to  discover 
any  clue  to  the  ultimate  mystery  of  origins, 
any  clue  which  can  compete  for  a  moment 
with  the  view  of  theology. 

Consider  first  this  impressive  silence  of 
science  on  the  question  of  origins.  Who 
creates,  or  evolves ;  whether  do  the  atoms 
come,  or  go  ?  These  questions  remain  as 
before.  Science  has  not  found  a  substitute 
for  God.  And  yet,  in  another  sense,  these 
questions  are  very  different  from  before. 
Science  has  put  them  through  its  crucible. 
It  took  them  from  theology,  and  deliberately 
proclaimed  that  it  would  try  to  answer  them. 


230        THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

They  are  now  handed  back,  tried,  unan- 
swered, but  with  a  new  place  in  theology 
and  a  new  power  with  science.  Science  has 
attained,  after  this  ordeal,  to  a  new  respect 
for  theology.  If  there  are  answers  to  these 
questions,  and  there  ought  to  be,  theology 
holds  them.  And  theology  likewise,  has 
learned  a  new  respect  for  science.  In  its 
investigations  of  these  questions  science  has 
made  a  discovery.  It  has  seen  plainly  that 
atheism  is  unscientific.  It  is  a  remarkable 
thing  that  after  trailing  its  black  length  for 
centuries  across  European  thought,  atheism 
should  have  had  its  doom  pronounced  by 
science.  With  its  most  penetrating  gaze 
science  has  now  looked  at  the  back  of  phe- 
nomena. It  says  "  The  atheist  tells  us  there 
is  nothing  there.  We  cannot  believe  him. 
We  cannot  tell  what  it  is,  but  there  is  cer- 
tainly something.  Agnostics  we  may  be, 
we  can  no  longer  be  atheists." 

This  permission  to  theism  to  go  on,  this 
invitation  to  Christianity  to  bring  forward  its 
theory  to  supplement  science  here,  and  give 
this  something  a  name,  is  a  great  advance. 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY     231 
And  science  has  not  left  here  a  mere  vaeue 

o 

void  for  Christianity  to  fill,  but  a  carefully 
denned  niche  with  suggestions  of  the  most 
striking  kind  as  to  how  it  is  to  be  filled.  It 
has  never  been  sufficiently  noticed  how  com- 
plete is  the  scientific  account  of  a  creative 
process,  and  how  here  biology  and  theology 
have  actually  touched.  Watch  a  careful 
worker  in  science  for  a  moment,  and  see  how 
nearly  a  man  by  searching  has  found  out 
God.  The  observer  is  Mr.  Huxley.  He 
stands  looking  down  the  tube  of  a  powerful 
microscope.  Almost  touching  the  lens,  he 
has  placed  a  tiny  speck  of  matter,  which  he 
tells  us  is  the  egg  of  a  little  water-animal,  the 
common  salamander  or  water-newt.  He  is 
trying  to  describe  what  he  sees ;  it  is  the 
creation  or  development  of  a  life.  "  It  is  a 
minute  spheroid,"  he  says,  "  in  which  the  best 
microscope  will  reveal  nothing  but  a  struc- 
tureless sac,  enclosing  a  glairy  fluid,  holding 
granules  in  suspension.  But  strange  possi- 
bilities lie  dormant  in  that  semi-fluid  globe. 
Let  a  moderate  supply  of  warmth  reach  its 
watery  cradle,  and  the  plastic  matter  under- 


232         THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

goes  changes  so  rapid  and  yet  so  steady  and 
purposelike  in  their  succession,  that  one  can 
only  compare  them  to  those  operated  by  a 
skilled  modeller  upon  a  formless  lump  of 
clay.  As  with  an  invisible  trowel  the  mass 
is  divided  and  subdivided  into  smaller  and 
smaller  portions,  until  it  is  reduced  to  an 
aggregation  of  granules  not  too  large  to 
build  withal  the  finest  fabrics  of  the  nascent 
organism.  And  then  it  is  as  if  a  delicate 
finger  traced  out  the  line  to  be  occupied  by 
the  spinal  column,  and  moulded  the  contour 
of  the  body;  pinching  up  the  head  at  one 
end,  and  the  tail  at  the  other,  and  fashioning 
flank  and  limb  into  due  salamandrine  pro- 
portions in  so  artistic  a  way,  that,  after 
watching  the  process  hour  by  hour,  one  is 
almost  involuntarily  possessed  by  the  notion 
that  some  more  subtle  aid  to  vision  than  an 
achromatic  would  show  the  hidden  artist  with 
his  plan  before  him,  striving  with  skilful 
manipulation  to  perfect  his  work"''  So  near 
has  this  observer  come  to  a  creator  from  the 
purely  scientific  side,  that  he  can  only  de- 

lu  Lay  Sermons,"  p.  261.     The  italics  are  ours. 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY    233 

scribe  what  he  sees  in  terms  of  creation. 
From  the  natural  side  he  has  come  within  a 
hair's-breadth  of  the  spiritual.  Science  and 
theology  are  here  simply  touching  each 
other.  There  is  not  room  really  for  another 
link  between.  And  it  will  be  apparent,  on  a 
moment's  reflection,  that  we  have  much 
more  in  this  than  the  final  completion  of  a 
religious  doctrine.  What  we  really  have  is 
the  joining  of  the  natural  and  spiritual  worlds 
themselves.  It  seems  such  a  long  way,  to 
some  men,  from  the  natural  to  the  spiritual, 
that  it  is  a  relief  to  witness  at  last  their 
actual  contact  even  at  a  point.  And  this  is 
also  a  presumption  that  they  are  in  unseen 
contact  all  along  the  line;  that  as  we  push 
all  other  truths  to  the  last  resort  they  will  be 
met  at  the  point  where  they  disappear,  that 
the  complementary  relations  of  religion  and 
science  will  more  and  more  be  manifest; 
and  that  the  unity,  though  never  the  fusion, 
of  the  natural  and  the  spiritual  will  be 
finally  disclosed. 

When  we  turn  now  to  the  larger  question 
of  the  creation   of  the  world  itself,  we   find 


234         THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

much  more  than  silence,  or  a  permission  to 
go  on.  We  find  science  has  a  definite 
theory  on  that  subject.  It  offers,  in  short, 
to  theology  a  doctrine  of  the  method  of 
creation,  in  its  hypothesis  of  evolution. 
That  this  doctrine  is  proved  yet,  no  one  will 
assert.  That  in  some  of  its  forms  it  is 
never  likely  to  be  proved,  many  are  con- 
vinced. It  will  be  time  for  theology  to  be 
unanimous  about  it  when  science  is  unani- 
mous about  it.  Yet  it  would  be  idle  to  deny 
that  in  a  general  form  it  has  received  the 
widest  assent  from  theology.  But  if  science 
is  satisfied,  even  in  a  general  way,  with  its 
theory  of  the  method  of  creation,  "  assent " 
is  a  cold  word  for  theology  to  welcome  it 
with.  It  is  needless  at  this  time  of  day  to 
point  out  the  surpassing  grandeur  of  the 
new  conception.  How  it  has  filled  the 
Christian  imagination  and  kindled  to  en- 
thusiasm the  soberest  scientific  minds,  is 
known  to  all.  For  that  splendid  hypothesis 
we  cannot  be  too  grateful  to  science,  and 
that  theology  can  only  enrich  itself  which 
gives  it  even  temporary  place.  There  is  a 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY     235 

sublimity  about  the  old  doctrine  of  creation 

—  we  are  speaking  of  its  scientific  aspects 

—  which,  if  one  could  compare  sublimities, 
is   not  surpassed  by  the  new;  but  there  is 
also   a  baldness.     Fulfilments  in  this  direc- 
tion were  sure  to  come  with  time,  and  they 
have  come  almost  before  the  riper  mind  had 
felt  its  need  of  them.     The  doctrine  of  evo- 
lution fills  a  gap  at  the  very  beginning  of 
our  religion,  and  no  one  who  looks  now  at 
the  transcendent   spectacle   of   the    world's 
past,  as  disclosed  by  science,  will  deny  that 
it  has  filled  it  worthily.     Yet,  after  all,  its 
beauty  is  not  the  only  part  of  its  contribu- 
tion to  Christianity.     Scientific  theology  re- 
quireda.  new  view,  though  it  did  not  require 
it  to  come  in  so  magnificent  a  form.     What 
it   wanted   was   a   credible  presentation,   in 
view  especially  of    astronomy,  geology,  and 
biology.    These  had  made  the  former  theory 
simply  untenable.      And   science    has   sup- 
plied theology  with  a  theory  which  the  in- 
tellect can  accept  and  which  for  the  devout 
mind   leaves    everything    more    worthy   of 
worship   than   before. 


236          THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

From  the  contemplation  of  the  flood  of 
light  poured  by  science  over  the  doctrine 
ot  Creation,  we  might  pass  on  to  mark  the 
effect  upon  many  other  theological  truths 
which  rays  from  the  same  source  are  begin- 
ning to  illuminate.  Nothing  could  be  more 
interesting  than  to  trace  up  the  doctrines 
one  by  one  in  order,  and  watch  the  light 
gradually  stealing  over  all.  This  must 
always  be  a  beautiful  sight;  for  this  is  the 
light  of  nature,  and  even  its  dawn  is  lovely. 
We  should  like  to  mark  where  the  last  ray 
gilded  the  last  hill-top,  and  see  how  many 
higher  peaks  lay  still  beyond  in  shadow. 
And  then  we  should  like  to  prophesy  that 
another  light  will  rise,  when  physical  science 
is  dim,  to  illuminate  what  remains.  We  do 
not  mean  an  inspired  word,  but  a  further 
contribution  from  nature  itself.  To  many 
men  of  science,  judging  by  the  small  esteem 
in  which  they  hold  philosophy,  the  day  of 
mental  science  apparently  is  past.  To  an 
enlightened  theology  it  is  the  science  of  the 
future.  It  were  strange  indeed,  and  a  con- 
tradiction of  evolution,  if  the  science  of 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY     237 

atoms  and  cells  were  a  later  or  further 
development  than  the  science  of  man. 
Theology  sees  the  point  at  which  physical 
science  must  cease  to  help  it;  but  encour- 
aged by  that  help,  it  will  expect  a  science  to 
arise  to  carry  it  through  the  darkness  that 
remains.  The  analogies  of  biology  may  be 
looked  to  to  elucidate  the  mysterious  phe- 
nomena of  regeneration.  When  theology 
has  received  its  full  contribution  from  nat- 
ural science  it  will  be  able  to  present  to  the 
world  a  scientific  account  of  its  greatest 
fact.  The  ultimate  mystery  of  life,  whether 
natural  or  spiritual,  may  still  remain :  but 
the  laws,  if  not  the  processes,  of  the  second 
birth  will  take  their  place  in  that  great  circle 
of  the  known  which  science  is  slowly  re- 
deeming from  the  surrounding  darkness. 
We  shall  then  have  an  embryology,  a 
morphology,  and  a  physiology  of  the  new 
man  ;  and  a  scientific  theology  will  add  to 
its  departments  a  higher  biology.  But  this 
cannot  exhaust  theology  any  more  than 
biology  exhausts  the  accounts  of  the  natural 
man.  Further  contributions  must  come  in 


238          THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

from  higher  sciences,  and  different  classes 
of  facts  must  be  arrayed  under  other  laws. 
Theology,  therefore,  predicates  a  science  of 
man  which  is  yet  to  come.  There  is  nothing 
external  to  theology;  it  must  collate  the 
different  revelations  in  mind  and  matter,  as 
science  gathers  them,  one  by  one.  The 
sciences  are  but  so  many  natural  history 
collectors,  busy  over  all  the  world  of  nature 
and  of  thought  in  gathering  material  for 
the  final  classification  by  the  final  science. 
Without  theology,  the  sciences  are  incom- 
plete, and  theology  can  only  complete  itself 
by  completing  the  sciences. 

But  we  have  only  space  at  present  to  note 
one  or  two  other  examples  of  the  contribution 
of  physical  science,  and  these  of  a  somewhat 
general  kind.  One  shall  be  the  doctrine  of 
revelation  itself.  That  science  shows  the 
necessity  for  a  revelation  in  a  new  way,  and 
even  hints  at  subtle  analogies  for  the  mode 
in  which  it  is  conveyed  to  human  minds,  are 
points  well  worth  developing.  But  we  can 
only  deal  now  with  the  more  familiar  ques- 
tion of  subject-matter  and  see  how  that  has 
been  affected  by  evolution. 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY     239 

According  to  science,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  evolution  is  the  method  of  creation, 
Now,  creation  is  a  form  of  revelation  ;  it  is 
the  oldest  form  of  revelation,  the  most  ac- 
cessible, the  most  universal,  and  still  an  ever- 
increasing  source  of  theological  truth.  It  is 
with  this  revelation  that  science  begins.  If 
then  science,  familiar  with  this  revelation, 
and  knowing  it  to  be  an  evolution,  were  to 
be  told  of  the  existence  of  another  revelation 
—  an  inspired  word  —  it  would  expect  that 
this  other  revelation  would  also  be  an  evolu- 
tion. Such  an  anticipation  might  or  might 
not  be  justified  ;  but  from  the  law  of  the  uni- 
formity of  nature,  there  would  be,  to  a  man 
of  science,  a  very  strong  presumption  in 
favour  of  any  revelation  which  bore  this 
scientific  hall-mark,  which  indicated,  that  is 
to  say,  that  God's  word  had  unfolded  itself 
to  men  like  His  works. 

Now,  if  science  searches  the  field  of  theol- 
ogy for  an  additional  revelation,  it  will  find  a 
Bible  awaiting  it  —  a  Bible  in  two  forms. 
The  one  is  the  Bible  as  it  was  presented  to 
our  forefathers :  the  other  is  the  Bible  of 


240         THE  CONTRIBUTION   OF 

modern  theology.  The  books,  the  chapters, 
the  verses,  and  the  words,  are  the  same  in 
each ;  yet  in  form  they  are  two  entirely  dif- 
ferent Bibles.  To  science  the  difference  is 
immediately  palpable.  Judging  of  each  of 
them  from  its  own  standpoint,  science  per- 
ceives after  a  brief  examination  that  the  dis- 
tinction between  them  is  one  with  which 
it  has  been  long  familiar.  In  point  of  fact, 
the  one  is  constructed  like  the  world  accord- 
ing to  the  old  cosmogonies,  while  the  other 
is  an  evolution.  The  one  represents  revela- 
tion as  having  been  produced  on  the  creative 
hypothesis,  the  Divine-fiat  hypothesis,  the 
ready-made  hypothesis;  the  other  on  the 
slow-growth  or  evolution  theory.  It  is  at  once 
obvious  which  of  them  science  would  prefer — 
it  could  no  more  accept  the  first  than  it 
could  accept  the  ready-made  theory  of  the 
universe. 

Nothing  could  be  more  important  than  to 
assure  science  that  the  same  difficulty  has  for 
some  time  been  felt,  and  with  quite  equal 
keenness,  by  theology.  The  scientific  method 
in  its  hand,  scientific  theology  has  been 


SCIENCE   TO    CHRISTIANITY      241 

laboriously  working  at  a  reconstruction  of 
biblical  truth  from  this  very  view-point  of 
development.  And  it  no  more  pledges  itself 
to-day  to  the  interpretations  of  the  Bible  of  a 
thousand  years  ago,  than  does  science  to  the 
interpretations  of  nature  in  the  time  of  Pyth- 
agoras. Nature  is  the  same  to-day  as  in  the 
time  of  Pythagoras,  and  the  Bible  is  the 
same  to-day  as  a  thousand  years  ago.  But 
the  Pythagorean  interpretation  of  nature  is 
not  less  objectionable  to  the  modern  mind 
than  are  many  ancient  interpretations  of  the 
Scriptures  to  the  scientific  theologian. 

The  supreme  contribution  of  Evolution  to 
Religion  is  that  it  has  given  it  a  clearer 
Bible.  One  great  function  of  science  is  not, 
as  many  seem  to  suppose,  to  make  things 
difficult,  but  to  make  things  plain.  Science 
is  the  great  explainer,  the  great  expositor, 
not  only  of  nature,  but  of  everything  it 
touches.  Its  function  is  to  arrange  things, 
and  make  them  reasonable.  And  it  has 
arranged  the  Bible  in  a  new  way,  and  made 
it  as  different  as  science  has  made  the  world. 
It  is  not  going  too  far  to  say  that  there  are 

16 


242         THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

many  things  in  the  Bible  which  are  hard  to 
reconcile  with  our  ideas  of  a  just  and  good 
God.  This  is  only  expressing  what  even 
the  most  devout  and  simple  minds  constantly 
feel,  and  feel  to  be  sorely  perplexing,  in 
reading  especially  the  Old  Testament.  But 
these  difficulties  arise  simply  from  an  old- 
fashioned  or  unscientific  view  of  what  the 
Bible  is,  and  are  similar  to  the  difficulties 
found  in  nature  when  interpreted  either 
without  the  aid  of  science,  or  with  the  science 
of  many  centuries  ago.  We  see  now  that 
the  mind  of  man  has  been  slowly  developing, 
that  the  race  has  been  gradually  educated, 
and  that  revelation  has  been  adapted  from 
the  first  to  the  various  and  successive  stages 
through  which  that  development  passed. 
Instead,  therefore,  of  reading  all  our  theology 
into  Genesis,  we  see  only  the  alphabet  there. 
In  the  later  books  we  see  primers  —  first, 
second,  and  third  :  the  truths  stated  provision- 
ally as  for  children,  but  gaining  volume  and 
clearness  as  the  world  gets  older.  Centuries 
and  centuries  pass,  and  the  mind  of  the 
disciplined  race  is  at  last  deemed  ripe 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY    243 

enough  to  receive  New  Testament  truth, 
and  the  revelation  culminates  in  the  person 
of  Christ. 

The  moral  difficulties  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment are  admittedly  great.  But  when 
approached  from  the  new  standpoint,  when 
they  are  seen  to  be  rudiments  spoken  and 
acted  in  strange  ways  to  attract  and  teach 
children,  they  vanish  one  by  one.  For 
instance,  we  are  told  that  the  iniquities  of 
the  father  are  to  be  visited  upon  the  children 
unto  the  third  and  fourth  generation.  The 
impression  upon  the  early  mind  undoubtedly 
must  have  been  that  this  was  a  solemn  threat 
which  God  would  carry  out  in  anger  in 
individual  cases.  We  now  know,  however, 
that  this  is  simply  the  doctrine  of  heredity. 
A  child  inherits  its  parents'  nature  not  as  a 
special  punishment,  but  by  natural  law.  In 
those  days  that  could  not  be  explained. 
Natural  law  was  a  word  unknown ;  and  the 
truth  had  to  be  put  provisionally  in  a  form 
that  all  could  understand.  And  even  many 
of  the  miracles  may  have  explanations  in 
fact  or  in  principle,  which,  without  destroy- 


244         THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

ing  the  idea  of  the  miraculous,  may  show 
the  naturalness  of  the  supernatural. 

The  theory  of  the  Bible,  which  makes 
belief  in  revelation  possible  to  the  man  of 
science,  Christianity  owes  to  the  scientific 
method.  It  is  not  suggested  that  the 
evolution  theory  in  theology  was  introduced 
to  satisfy  the  mind  of  the  scientific  thinker, 
any  more  than  that  his  appreciation  of  it  is 
the  test  of  its  truth.  As  regards  the  latter, 
it  is  to  be  weighed  on  its  own  evidence  and 
judged  by  its  fruits;  and  as  regards  the 
question  of  origin,  its  ancestry  is  much  more 
reputable,  for  it  was  not  a  concession  to  any 
theory,  but  rose  out  of  the  facts  themselves. 
Indeed,  long  before  evolution  was  formulated 
in  science,  discerning  minds  had  seen,  with 
an  enthusiasm  which  few  could  at  that  time 
share,  the  slow,  steady,  upward  growth  of 
theological  truth  to  ever  higher  and  nobler 
forms.  "  Wonderful  it  is  to  see  with  what 
effort,  hesitation,  suspense,  interruption  — 
with  how  many  swayings  to  the  right  and 
to  the  left — with  how  many  reverses,  yet 
with  what  certainty  of  advance,  with  what 


SCIENCE  TO   CHRISTIANITY     245 

precision  in  its  march,  and  with  what 
ultimate  completeness,  it  has  been  evolved ; 
till  the  whole  truth,  '  self-balanced  on  its 
centre  hung,'  part  answering  to  part,  one, 
absolute,  integral,  indissoluble,  while  the 
whole  lasts !  Wonderful  to  see  how  heresy 
has  but  thrown  this  idea  into  fresh  forms, 
and  drawn  out  from  it  further  developments, 
with  an  exuberance  which  exceeded  all 
questionings,  and  a  harmony  which  baffled 
all  criticism."1  These  are  not  the  words  of 
modern  science.  They  were  written  forty 
years  ago  by  John  Henry  Newman.  Since 
then  the  central  idea  of  this  passage,  which 
though  it  does  not  refer  to  the  Bible  is 
equally  applicable  to  it,  has  been  carried  into 
departments  of  theology,  in  ways  which  were 
then  undreamed  of ;  and  however  physical 
science  may  have  contributed  to  this  result, 
it  is  certain  that  the  method  is  not  the 
creation  of  science. 

Evolution  is  the  ever-recurring  theme  in 
theology  as  in  nature.  We  might  indeed 
almost  have  grouped  the  entire  contribution 

1  Newman,  "  University  Sermons,"  p.  317. 


246         THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

of  science  to  Christianity  around  this  point. 
The  mere  presence  of  the  doctrine  of  Evolu- 
tion in  science  has  reacted  as  by  an  electric 
induction  on  every  surrounding  circle  of 
thought.  Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  whether 
we  shun  the  charge,  or  court  it,  or  dread  it, 
it  has  come,  and  we  must  set  ourselves  to 
understand  it.  No  truth  now  can  remain 
unaffected  by  evolution.  We  can  no  longer 
take  out  a  doctrine  in  this  century  or  in  that, 
bottle  it  like  a  vintage,  and  store  it  in  our 
creeds.  We  see  truth  now  as  a  profound 
ocean  still,  but  with  a  slow  and  ever-rising 
tide.  Theology  must  reckon  with  this  tide. 
We  can  store  this  truth  in  our  vessels,  for 
the  formulation  of  doctrine  must  never,  never 
stop,  but  the  vessels,  with  their  mouths 
open,  must  remain  in  the  ocean.  If  we  take 
them  out  the  tide  cannot  rise  in  them,  and 
we  shall  only  have  stagnant  doctrines  rotting 
in  a  dead  theology.  But  theology,  surely, 
with  its  great  age,  its  eternal  foundation,  and 
its  countless  mysteries,  has  the  least  to  lose 
and  the  most  to  gain  from  every  advance  of 
knowledge.  And  the  development  theory 


SCIENCE  TO   CHRISTIANITY     247 

has  done  more  for  theology  perhaps  than  for 
any  other  science.  Evolution  has  given  to 
theology  some  wholly  new  departments.  It 
has  raised  it  to  a  new  rank  among  the 
sciences.  It  has  given  it  a  vastly  more  rea- 
sonable body  of  truth,  about  God  and  man, 
about  sin  and  salvation.  It  has  lent  it  a 
firmer  base,  an  enlarged  horizon,  and  a 
richer  faith.  But  its  general  contribution, 
on  which  all  these  depend,  is  to  the  doctrine 
of  revelation. 

What  then  does  this  mean  for  revelation  ? 
It  means  in  plain  language  that  Evolution 
has  given  Christianity  a  new  Bible.  Its  pe- 
culiarity is,  that  in  its  form,  it  is  like  the 
world  in  which  it  is  found.  It  is  a  word,  but 
its  root  is  now  known,  and  we  have  other 
words  from  the  same  root.  Its  substance  is 
still  the  unchanged  language  of  heaven,  yet 
it  is  written  in  a  familiar  tongue.  The  new 

»•  o 

Bible  is  a  book  whose  parts,  though  not  of 
unequal  value,  are  seen  to  be  of  different 
kinds  of  value;  where  the  casual  is  distin- 
guished from  the  essential,  the  local  from  the 
universal,  the  subordinate  from  the  primal 


248        THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

end.  This  Bible  is  not  a  book  which  has 
been  made ;  it  has  grown.  Hence  it  is  no 
longer  a  mere  word-book,  nor  a  compendium 
of  doctrines,  but  a  nursery  of  growing  truths. 
It  is  not  an  even  plane  of  proof  text  without 
proportion  or  emphasis,  or  light  and  shade ; 
but  a  revelation  varied  as  nature,  with  the 
Divine  in  its  hidden  parts,  in  its  spirit,  its  ten- 
dencies, its  obscurities,  and  its  omissions.  Like 
nature  it  has  successive  strata,  and  valley  and 
hilltop,  and  mist  and  atmosphere,  and  rivers 
which  are  flowing  still,  and  here  and  there  a 
place  which  is  desert,  and  fossils  too,  whose 
crude  forms  are  the  stepping-stones  to  higher 
things.  It  is  a  record  of  inspired  deeds  as 
well  as  of  inspired  words,  an  ascending  se- 
ries of  inspired  facts  in  a  matrix  of  human 
history. 

Now  it  is  to  be  marked  that  this  is  not 
the  product  of  any  destructive  movernent, 
nor  is  this  transformed  book  in  any  sense  a 
mutilated  Bible.  All  this  has  taken  place, 
it  may  be,  without  the  elimination  of  a  book 
or  the  loss  of  an  important  word.  It  is 
simply  the  transformation  by  a  method 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY     249 

whose  main  warrant  is  that  the  book  lends 
itself  to  it. 

It  may  be  said,  and  for  a  time  it  will  con- 
tinue to  be  said,  that  the  Christian  does  not 
need  a  transformed  Bible ;  and  fortunately, 
or  in  some  cases  unfortunately,  this  is  the 
case.  For  years  yet  the  old  Bible  will  con- 
tinue to  nourish  the  soul  of  the  Church, 
as  it  has  nourished  it  in  the  past;  and  the 
needy  heart  will  in  all  time  manage  to  feed 
itself  apart  from  any  forms.  But  there  is  a 
class,  and  an  ever-increasing  class,  to  whom 
the  form  is  much.  Theology  is  only  begin- 
ning to  realise  how  radical  is  the  change  in 
mental  attitude  of  those  who  have  learned 
to  think  from  science.  Intercourse  with  the 
ways  of  nature  breeds  a  mental  attitude  of 
its  own.  It  is  an  attitude  worthy  of  its 
master.  In  this  presence  the  student  is  face 
to  face  with  what  is  real.  He  is  looking 
with  his  own  eyes  at  facts  —  at  what  God 
did.  He  finds  things  in  nature  just  as  its 
Maker  left  them;  and  from  ceaseless  con- 
tact  with  phenomena  which  will  not  change 
for  man,  and  with  laws  which  he  has  never 


250        THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

known  to  swerve,  he  fears  to  trust  his  mind 
to  anything  less.  Now  this  Bible  which  has 
been  described,  is  the  presentation  to  this 
asre  of  men  who  have  learned  this  habit. 

o 

They  have  studied  the  facts,  they  have 
looked  with  their  own  eyes  at  what  God 
did ;  and  they  are  giving  us  a  book  which 
is  more  than  the  devout  man's  Bible,  though 
it  is  as  much  as  ever  the  devout  man's  Bible. 
It  is  the  apologist's  Bible.  It  is  long  since 
the  apologist  has  had  a  Bible.  The  Bible 
of  our  infancy  was  not  an  apologist's  Bible. 
There  are  things  in  the  Old  Testament  cast 
in  his  teeth  by  sceptics,  to  which  he  has 
simply  no  answer.  These  are  the  things, 
the  miserable  things,  the  masses  have  laid 
hold  of.  They  are  the  stock-in-trade  to-day 
of  the  free-thought  platform,  and  the  secularist 
pamphleteer.  And,  surprising  as  it  is,  there 
are  not  a  few  honest  seekers  who  are  made 
timid  and  suspicious,  not  a  few  on  the  out- 
skirts of  Christianity  who  are  kept  from 
coming  further  in,  by  the  half-truths  which 
a  new  exegesis,  a  reconsideration  of  the 
historic  setting,  and  a  clearer  view  of  the 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY    251 

moral  purposes  of  God,  would  change  from 
barriers  into  bulwarks  of  the  faith.  Such 
a  Bible  scientific  theology  is  giving  us,  and 
it  cannot  be  proclaimed  to  the  mass  of  the 
people  too  soon.  It  is  no  more  fair  to  raise 
and  brandish  objections  to  the  Bible  without 
first  studying  carefully  what  scientific  theo- 
logians have  to  say  on  the  subject,  than  it 
would  be  fair  for  one  who  derived  his  views 
of  the  natural  world  from  Pythagoras  to 
condemn  all  science.  It  is  expected  in  criti- 
cisms of  science  that  the  critic's  knowledge 
should  at  least  be  up  to  date,  that  he  is 
attacking  what  science  really  holds  ;  and  the 
same  justice  is  to  be  awarded  to  the  science 
of  theology.  When  science  makes  its  next 
attack  upon  theology,  if  indeed  that  shall 
ever  be  again,  it  will  find  an  armament, 
largely  furnished  by  itself,  which  has  made 
the  Bible  as  impregnable  as  nature. 

One  question,  finally,  will  determine  the 
ultimate  worth  of  this  contribution  to  Chris- 
tianity. Does  it  help  it  practically  ?  Does 
it  impoverish  or  enrich  the  soul  ?  Does  it 
lower  or  exalt  God  ?  These  questions,  with 


252         THE   CONTRIBUTION   OF 

regard  to  one  or  two  of  the  elementary 
truths  of  religion  have  been  partially  answer- 
ered  already.  But  a  closing  illustration  from 
the  highest  of  all  will  show  that  here  also 
science  is  not  silent. 

Science  has  nothing  finer  to  offer  Chris- 
tianity than  the  exaltation  of  its  supreme 
conception  —  God.  Is  it  too  much  to  say 
that  in  a  practical  age  like  the  present,  when 
the  idea  and  practice  of  worship  tend  to  be 
forgotten,  God  should  wish  to  reveal  Himself 
afresh  in  ever  more  striking  ways  ?  Is  it  too 
much  to  say,  that  at  this  distance  from  crea- 
tion, with  the  eye  of  theology  resting  largely 
upon  the  incarnation  and  work  of  the  man 
Christ  Jesus,  the  Almighty  should  design 
with  more  and  more  impressiveness  to  utter 
Himself  as  the  Wonderful,  the  Counsellor, 
the  Great  and  Mighty  God  ?  Whether  this 
be  so  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  every  step  of 
science  discloses  the  attributes  of  the  Al- 
mighty with  a  growing  magnificence.  The 
author  of  Natural  Religion  tells  us  that  "  the 
average  scientific  man  worships  just  at  pres- 
ent a  more  awful,  and  as  it  were  a  greater 


SCIENCE   TO   CHRISTIANITY    253 

Deity  than  the  average  Christian."  Certain 
it  is  that  the  Christian  view  and  the  scien- 
tific view  together  frame  a  conception  of  the 
object  of  worship  such  as  the  world  in  its 
highest  inspiration  has  never  reached  before. 
The  old  student  of  natural  theology  rose 
from  his  contemplation  of  design  in  nature 
with  heightened  feeling  of  the  wisdom,  good- 
ness, and  power,  of  the  Almighty.  But  never 
before  had  the  attributes  of  eternity,  and  im- 
mensity, and  infinity,  clothed  themselves  with 
language  so  majestic  in  its  sublimity.  It  is 
a  language  for  the  mind  alone.  Yet  in  the 
presence  of  the  slow  toiling  of  geology,  mil- 
lennium after  millennium,  at  the  unfinished 
earth ;  before  the  unthinkable  past  of  palae- 
ontology, both  but  moments  and  lightning- 
flashes  to  the  immenser  standards  of  astron- 
omy :  before  these  even  the  imagination 
reels  and  leaves  an  experience  only  for 
religion. 


Spiritual 
Diagnosis 


Essay  read  before  the  Theological 
Society,  New  College^  Edinburgh, 
November,  1873. 


Spiritual    Diagnosis 

AN  ARGUMENT   FOR   PLACING  THE   STUDY 
OF   THE   SOUL  ON   A   SCIENTIFIC    BASIS 

THE   study   of  the   soul  in  health  and 
disease  ought  to  be  as  much  an  object 
of  scientific  study  and  training  as  the  health 
and  diseases  of  the  body. 

It  has  long  been  one  of  the  favourite 
axioms  of  Apologetics,  that  a  Christian  life 
is  the  best  argument  for  Christianity.  And, 
if  an  old  argument,  it  is  after  all  the  best 
argument,  for  in  these  last  days  there  is 
nothing  in  the  philosophy  of  apologetical 
religion  at  all  worth  reviving  compared  with 
this  living  power  of  true  lives.  A  free-thinker 
may  go  very  far  without  meeting  an  argument 
to  throw  him  back  upon  his  own  inner  soul, 
but  no  one  can  live  long,  be  he  in  high  life 
or  low  life,  without  coming  within  the  in- 

17 


258          SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS 

fluence  of  a  Christian  man.  The  power  of 
the  individual,  the  value  of  the  unit,  the  re- 
spect due  to  one  human  soul  —  this  is  the 
great  truth  for  churches,  for  armies,  and  for 
empires.  Students  of  the  new  science  of  soci- 
ology may  deny  this  truth  as  they  will,  and 
their  great  disciple,  Herbert  Spencer,  may  de- 
nounce what  he  calls  the  "  great-man-theory 
of  history  "  as  only  fit  for  savages  gossiping 
round  their  camp  fire,  but  it  still  remains  a 
great  and  important  truth  (as  he  himself  ex- 
presses it  before  failing  to  refute  it)  "  that 
throughout  the  past  of  the  human  race  the 
doings  of  conspicuous  persons  have  been 
the  only  things  worthy  of  remembrance." 

The  past  has  indeed  no  masses.  Men,  not 
masses,  have  done  all  that  is  great  in  history, 
in  science,  and  in  religion.  The  New  Testa- 
ment itself  is  but  a  brief  biography;  and 
many  pages  of  the  Old  are  marked  by  the 
lives  of  men.  Yet  it  is  just  this  truth  which 
we  require  to  be  taught  again  to-day  —  to  be 
content  with  aiming  at  units.  Every  atom 
in  the  universe  can  act  on  every  other  atom, 
but  only  through  the  atom  next  it.  And  if 


SPIRITUAL   DIAGNOSIS          259 

a  man  would  act  upon  every  other  man,  he 
can  do  so  best  by  acting,  one  at  a  time,  upon 
those  beside  him.  The  true  worker's  world 
is  a  unit. 

Recognise  the  personal  glory  and  dignity 
of  the  unit  as  an  agent.  Work  with  units, 
but,  above  all,  work  at  units. 

But  the  capacity  of  acting  upon  individuals 
is  now  almost  a  lost  art.  It  is  hard  to  learn 
again.  We  have  spoilt  ourselves  by  thinking 
to  draw  thousands  by  public  work  —  by  what 
people  call  "  pulpit  eloquence,"  by  platform 
speeches,  and  by  convocations  and  councils, 
Christian  conferences,  and  by  books  of  many 
editions.  We  have  been  painting  Madonnas 
and  Ecce  Homos  and  choirs  of  angels,  like 
Raphael,  and  it  is  hard  to  condescend  to  the 
beggar  boy  of  Murillo.  Yet  we  must  begin 
again,  and  begin  far  down.  Christianity  be- 
gan with  one.  We  have  forgotten  the  simple 
way  of  the  Founder  of  the  greatest  influence 
the  world  has  ever  seen  —  how  He  ran  away 
from  cities,  how  He  shirked  mobs,  how  He 
lagged  behind  the  rest  at  Samaria  to  have  a 
quiet  talk  with  one  woman  at  a  well,  how  He 


260         SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS 

stole  away  from  crowds  and  entered  into  the 
house  of  one  humble  Syro-Phcenician  woman, 
"  and  would  have  no  man  know  it."  In  small 
groups  of  twos  and  threes  He  collected  the 
early  Church  around  Him.  One  by  one  the 
disciples  were  called  —  and  there  were  only 
twelve  in  all.  We  all  know  well  enough  how 
to  move  the  masses ;  we  know  how  to  draw 
a  crowd  round  us,  but  to  attract  the  units  — 
that  is  the  hard  matter.  Teach  us  how  to 
fascinate  the  unit  by  our  glance,  by  our  con- 
versational oratory,  by  our  mystery  of 
sympathy !  We  know  how  to  bring  the 
mob  about  us,  how  to  flash  and  storm  in 
passion,  how  to  work  in  the  appeal  at  the 
right  moment,  how  to  play  upon  all  the 
figures  of  rhetoric  in  succession  and  how  to 
throw  in  a  calm  when  no  one  expects,  but 
every  one  wants  it.  Every  one  knows  this, 
or  can  know  it  easily;  but  to  draw  souls  one 
by  one,  to  buttonhole  them  and  steal  from 
them  the  secret  of  their  lives,  to  talk  them 
clean  out  of  themselves,  to  read  them  off 
like  a  page  of  print,  to  pervade  them  with 
your  spiritual  essence  and  make  them  trans- 


SPIRITUAL   DIAGNOSIS         261 

parent,  this  is  the  spiritual  science  which 
is  so  difficult  to  acquire  and  so  hard  to 
practise. 

"  After  a  spirit  of  discernment,"  says  an 
old  French  sage  (La  Bruyere),  "  the  next 
rarest  things  in  the  world  are  diamonds  and 
pearls." ]  Of  the  three  elements,  body,  mind, 
and  soul,  which  make  up  a  responsible  hu- 
man being,  two  only  have  been  hitherto 
treated  as  fit  subjects  for  scientific  inquiry. 
From  six  thousand  years  of  contemplation 
of  the  phenomena  of  human  life  and  thought, 
only  two  sciences  have  emerged.  Physiology 
has  told  us  all  that  is  possible  of  the  human 
body ;  psychology,  of  the  mind.  But  the  half 
is  not  accounted  for.  We  wish,  further,  a 
spiritual  psychology  to  tell  us  of  the  unseen 
realities  of  the  soul.  This  is  where  our 
University  training  must  be  supplemented. 
It  deals  with  man  as  a  body  and  a  mind.  It 
forgets  that  man  is  a  trinity.  It  is  an  extra- 
ordinary and  momentous  fact  that  by  far  the 
most  important  factor  in  human  life  has  been 

1  "  Apres  1'esprit  de  discernement  ce  qu'il  y  a  au  monde  de 
plus  rare,  ce  sont  les  diamants  et  les  perles."    (.Caracteres.) 


262          SPIRITUAL   DIAGNOSIS 

up  to  this  time  all  but  altogether  ignored  by 
the  thinking  world.  Of  course  every  relig- 
ious writer  has  a  few  notions  upon  the  sub- 
ject, but  notions  are  not  enough.  If  the 
mind  is  large  enough  and  varied  enough  to 
make  a  philosophy  of  mind  possible,  is  the 
soul  such  a  trifling  part  of  man  that  it  is  not 
worth  while  seeking  to  frame  a  science  of  it  ? 
—  a  science  of  it  which  men  can  learn,  and 
which  can  be  a  guide  and  help  in  practice  to 
all  who  feel  an  interest  in  the  deepest  thing 
in  human  life  ?  It  is  no  use  to  say  there  is 
no  special  soul  —  that  there  is  a  strange 
never-comprehended  essence,  half  emotion, 
half  affection,  half  reason,  half  unearthliness, 
to  attempt  to  analyse  which  would  only  leave 
us,  like  Milton's  philosophic  angels,  "  in  wan- 
dering mazes  lost."  But  this  is  the  mere 
concealment  of  ignorance  in  mystery.  There 
is  a  soul,  and  there  is  a  spiritual  life.  Plato 
knew  it  and  called  it,  in  his  wonderment  over 
it,  "the  soulish  mind."  Solomon  knew  it 
when  he  talked  of  "  the  hearing  ear."  Adcli- 
son  knew  it  and  defined  it :  "  'T  is  the  divinity 
that  stirs  within  us."  And  in  "  Culture  and 


SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS         263 

Religion  "  the  Principal  of  St.  Andrews  Uni- 
versity charges  his  students  "  that  there  is  a 
faculty  of  spiritual  apprehension  which  is 
very  different  from  those  which  are  trained 
in  schools  and  colleges,  which  must  be  edu- 
cated and  fed  not  less  but  more  carefully 
than  our  lower  faculties,  else  it  will  be  starved 
and  die." 

The  same  thoughtful  writer  has  put  the 
problem  which  we  are  endeavouring  to  meet 
in  plain  and  forcible  terms.  "  But  because 
the  primary  truths  of  religion,"  he  says, 
"  refuse  to  be  caught  in  the  grip  of  the  log- 
ical vice  —  because  they  are  transcendent, 
and  only  mystically  apprehended,  are  think- 
ing men  therefore  either  to  give  up  these 
subjects  as  impossible  to  think  about,  or  to 
content  themselves  with  a  vague  religiosity, 
an  unreal  sentimentalism  ?  "  The  Principal's 
question  is  a  striking  question.  Are  we 
content  to  let  this  great  spiritual  life  work 
silently  around  us  without  attempting  to 
know  more  about  it,  to  analyse  it,  to  make 
it  more  accessible  to  us  and  us  to  it  ?  Are 
we  to  regard  it  as  some  weird  element,  unap- 


264         SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS 

proachable,  mysterious,  unstable,  incompre- 
hensible in  its  essence?  There  is,  it  is  true, 
an  element  about  it  which  keeps  us  at  our 
distance  from  it;  but  as  its  groundwork  is 
human,  may  we  not  see  the  points  where  it 
touches  the  human,  the  changes  it  effects, 
the  hindrances  to  the  changes,  and  the  won- 
derful complexity  of  action  and  interaction 
which  it  originates?  Are  there  materials 
here  for  a  philosophy,  and  is  it  lawful  to 
reduce  it  to  a  science  ?  Can  there,  in  short, 
be  a  science  of  spirituality  ? 

At  first  sight  the  idea  is  repulsive  in  the 
extreme.  Yet  a  science  is  a  classification  of 
facts;  and  is  there  anything  irreverent  or 
presumptuous  in  attempting  to  classify  the 
facts  of  the  spiritual  life?  The  facts,  it  may 
be  answered,  are  too  numerous;  they  are 
more  than  the  sand  of  the  sea.  But  so  are 
the  combinations  of  elements  with  which  the 
chemist  deals,  and  the  modifications  of  mor- 
phological type  with  which  the  biologist 
deals,  yet  we  have  a  chemistry  and  a  biology. 
That,  then,  is  the  least  of  the  difficulty.  But 
a  great  one,  apparently  an  insurmountable 


SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS  265 

one,  lies  just  on  the  threshold.  The  facts  of 
physical  science  lie  in  the  order  of  the  natu- 
ral, and  they  are  finite.  The  facts  of  spiritual 
science,  if  we  may  call  it  so,  lie  in  the  order 
of  the  supernatural,  and  they  are  infinite. 
They  are  pervaded  by  an  element  which  no 
man  can  fathom.  "  The  Spirit  bloweth 
where  it  listeth."  We  look  in  a  man's  soul 
for  that  which  we  saw  there  yesterday,  but 
the  unseen  influence  has  swept  across  the 
heart,  and  the  spiritual  scenery  is  changed. 
The  man  himself  is  the  same,  his  passions 
unaltered  in  their  strength,  his  foibles  un- 
changed in  their  weakness,  but  the  furniture 
of  the  soul  has  been  moved,  and  the  spiritual 
machinery  goes  on  upon  a  new  and  sud- 
denly developed  principle.  Here,  then,  our 
investigations  are  stopped  at  the  outset. 
Dare  we  approach  no  nearer?  Often  we 
would  fain  do  so.  Often  we  are  placed  in 
such  circumstances  that  plainly  we  must 
do  so.  A  friend  is  in  trouble,  we  are 
in  trouble.  But  how  are  we  to  proceed? 
What  guide  have  we  in  ministering  to  a 
soul  diseased  ? 


266          SPIRITUAL   DIAGNOSIS 

Is  there  no  guide-book  upon  the  subject, 
no  chart  or  table  of  the  logical  history  of  the 
spiritual  life,  no  chair  of  Spiritual  Diagnosis  ? 
We  do  not  mean  a  table  such  as  Doddridge 
has  given  us  in  "  The  Rise  and  Progress  of 
Religion  in  the  Soul."  The  fatal  error  of 
that  style  of  work  is  to  give  the  inquiring 
soul  the  idea  of  a  certain  mechanical  process 
to  be  passed  through  before  conversion  can 
be  attained.  But  conversion  does  not  always 
develop  like  a  proposition  in  Euclid,  or  sensi- 
tised plate  in  photography.  God  the  Crea- 
tor will  have  no  machine-made  men  in  earth 
or  heaven.  And  it  is  not  His  will  that  there 
should  only  be  a  few  stereotyped  forms  of 
saints  —  the  Richard  Baxter  type,  the  Jeremy 
Taylor  type,  and  the  Philip  Doddridge  type. 
Therefore  it  is  a  dangerous  thing  to  put 
forms  and  processes  which  exist  only  in  the 
logical  imagination  into  the  hands  of  the 
inquirer.  But  when  these  works  are  put 
into  the  hands  of  the  Christian  teacher  or 
minister,  their  utility  is  beyond  all  praise. 
He,  as  spiritual  adviser,  should  be  thoroughly 
acquainted  with  the  rationale  of  conversion. 


SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS          267 

He  should  know  it  as  a  physician  his  phar- 
macopoeia. He  should  know  every  phase  of 
the  human  soul,  in  health  and  disease,  in 
the  fulness  of  joy  and  the  blackness  of 
despair.  He  should  know  the  "  Pilgrim's 
Progress  "  better  than  Bunyan.  The  scheme 
of  salvation,  as  we  are  accustomed  to  call  it, 
should  be  ever  clearly  defined  in  his  con- 
sciousness. The  lower  stages,  the  period  of 
transition,  its  solemnity,  its  despairs,  its 
glimmering  light,  its  growing  faith ;  and  the 
Christian  life  begun,  the  laborious  working 
out  in  fear  and  trembling,  the  slavish  scru- 
pulosity, still  the  fearfulness  of  fall,  still 
remorse,  more  faith,  more  hope ;  and  last 
of  all  the  higher  spiritual  life,  the  realisa- 
tion of  freedom,  the  disappearance  of  the 
slavish  scrupulosity,  the  pervasion  of  the 
whole  life  with  God. 

Such  a  skeleton  is  easily  made  and  easily 
remembered,  and  it  is  all  that  many  have  to 
perform  their  work  with ;  but  it  is  no  more 
adequate  for  its  great  task  than  is  the  com- 
pass of  a  schoolboy's  whistle  to  take  in  the 
sweep  of  Handel's  "  Messiah."  To  fill  up 


268          SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS 

such  an  outline  with  all  the  exquisite  tracery 
of  thought  and  emotion  and  doubt,  which 
develop  within  the  mind  of  an  inquiring 
soul,  is  a  great  and  rare  talent;  and  to 
apply  such  knowledge  in  the  practice  of 
daily  life  is  a  power  which  scarce  one  will 
be  found  to  possess.  Let  not  any  think 
that  such  knowledge  is  easily  attained ;  nor 
have  many  attained  it.  The  men  to  whom 
you  or  I  would  go  if  spiritual  darkness 
spread  across  our  souls,  who  are  they? 
How  few  have  penetration  enough  to  diag- 
nose our  case,  to  observe  our  least  apparent 
symptoms,  to  get  out  of  us  what  we  had 
resolved  not  to  tell  them,  to  see  through 
and  through  us  the  evil  and  the  good. 
Plenty  there  are  to  preach  to  us,  but  who 
will  interview  us,  and  anatomise  us,  and 
lay  us  bare  to  God's  eye  and  our  own  ?  X 
won't  be  preached  to  along  with  Y  and  Z 
and  Q;  that  won't  do  X  any  good,  for  he 
thinks  it  is  all  meant  for  K,  Z,  and  Q.  But 
to  take  X  by  himself;  to  feel  his  pulse  alone, 
and  give  him  one  particular  earnest  word  — 
the  only  one  word  that  would  do  —  all  to 


SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS          269 

himself  —  this  is  the  simple  feat  which  we 
look  in  vain  for  men  to  perform.  There  is 
a  tendency  piously  to  leave  such  matters  to 
God,  and  say  they  are  quite  safe  in  His 
hands,  who  alone  searcheth  the  heart.  But 
He  hath  appointed  us  to  be  our  brother's 
keeper,  nor  will  He  do  for  my  brother  what 
could  be  done  by  me.  We  cannot  expect 
the  Spirit's  help  to  teach  us  what  only 
laziness  and  personal  indifference  hinder  us 
from  learning;  and  to  despise  a  power 
which  He  gave  us  capacities  to  possess  is 
not  the  way  to  show  that  we  trust  Him 
who  gave  it.  "  Placeat  homini  quidquid 
Deo  placet." 

This  study  of  the  soul,  in  which  I  am 
endeavouring  to  enlist  your  interest,  is  a 
difficult  study.  It  is  difficult,  because  the 
soul  as  far  transcends  the  mind  in  com- 
plexity and  in  variety  as  the  mind  the 
body.  The  soul  is  an  infinitely  large  sub- 
ject —  an  infinitely  deep  and  mysterious  sub- 
ject. The  chemist  in  his  intricate  analysis 
deals  not  with  elements  more  subtle  and 
evasive. 


270          SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS 

"  Ay,  men  may  wonder  while  they  scan 
A  living,  thinking,  feeling  man." 

But  we  do  not  need  to  go  to  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing, or  to  "  Hamlet,"  to  be  told  "  What  a 
piece  of  work  is  man !  "  Apart  altogether 
from  the  religious  element  in  him,  he  is  still 
the  greatest  mystery  of  science.  Every  man 
is  a  problem  to  every  other  man  —  much 
more  every  spiritual  man.  It  is  hard  to 
know  a  man's  brain,  and  harder  to  know  his 
feelings ;  but  hardest  of  all  to  know  his  re- 
ligious convictions.  It  is  hard  to  know  the 
deepest  that  a  man  has.  A  well-known 
American  essayist  and  poet  has  told  us  that 
the  difficulty  of  analysing  our  neighbour's 
character  arises  from  the  fact  that  every 
man  is  in  reality  a  threefold  man.  When 
two  persons  are  in  conversation,  there  are 
really  six  persons  in  conversation.  Thus, 
to  put  the  paradox  into  the  shape  of  an 
example,  suppose  that  John  and  Tom  are 
in  conversation,  there  are  three  Johns  and 
three  Toms,  who  are  accounted  for  in  this 
way: 


SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS          271 

1.  The  real  John ;   known  only  to 

his  Maker. 

2.  John's  ideal  John ;  John,  i.  <?.,  as 

he   thinks-  himself;   never  the 
Three  real  John,  and  often  very  un- 

Johns]         like  him. 

3.  Tom's  ideal  John  ;  i.  e.,  John  as 

Tom  thinks  him ;  never  the 
real  John,  nor  John's  John, 
but  often  very  unlike  either. 

'i.  The  real  Tom. 
Three 
~        J  2.  Tom's  ideal  Tom. 

3.  John's  ideal  Tom. 

In  this  way  when  I  talk  to  another  it  is 
not  me  that  he  hears  talking,  but  his  ideal 
of  me;  nor  do  I  talk  to  him  as  he  defines 
himself,  but  to  my  ideal  of  him.  Now  that 
ideal  will,  without  almost  inconceivable  care 
and  penetration  on  my  part,  be  quite  differ- 
ent also  from  his  real  self  as  God  only 
knows  him,  so  that  instead  of  speaking  to 
his  real  soul,  I  may  possibly  be  speaking 
to  his  ideal  of  his  own  soul,  or  more  likely 
to  my  ideal  of  it. 


272          SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS 

From  this  it  will  be  seen  at  a  glance  that 
the  power  of  soul  analysis  is  a  hard  thing  to 
possess  oneself  of.  It  requires  intense  dis- 
crimination and  knowledge  of  human  nature 
—  much  and  deep  study  of  human  life  and 
character.  The  man  with  whom  you  speak 
being  made  up  of  two  ideals  —  his  own  and 
yours,  and  one  real  —  God's,  it  is  one  of  the 
hardest  possible  tasks  to  abandon  your  ideal 
of  him  and  get  to  know  the  real  —  God's. 
Then,  having  known  it,  so  far  as  possible  to 
man,  there  remains  the  greatest  difficulty  of 
all  —  to  introduce  him  to  himself.  You 
have  created  a  new  man  for  him,  and  he 
will  not  recognise  him  at  first.  He  can  see 
no  resemblance  to  his  ideal  self ;  the  new 
creature  is  not  such  a  lovely  picture  as  he 
would  like  to  own ;  the  lines  are  harshly 
drawn,  and  there  is  little  grace  and  no 
poetry  in  it.  But  he  must  be  told  that 
none  of  us  are  what  we  seem ;  and  if  he 
would  deal  faithfully  with  himself,  he  must 
try  to  see  himself  differently  from  what  he 
seems.  Then  he  must  be  led  with  much 
delicacy  to  make  a  little  introspection  of 


SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS          273 

himself;  and  with  the  mirror  lifted  to  his 
own  soul  you  read  off  together  some  of  the 
indications  which  are  defining  themselves 
vaguely  upon  its  surface.  Even  in  social 
and  domestic  circles  the  difficulty  of  per- 
forming this  apparently  simple  operation 
upon  human  nature  is  so  keenly  felt  that 
scarce  one  friend  will  be  found  with  a  friend- 
ship true  enough  to  perform  it  to  another. 
And  in  religious  matters  it  will  be  at  once 
conceded  that  the  complexity  of  the  difficul- 
ties increases  the  problem  a  hundredfold. 

There  is  a  danger,  however  —  speaking 
next  of  the  more  directly  religious  aspects 
of  the  question  —  in  exaggerating  these  dif- 
ficulties; and,  indeed,  the  further  objection 
may  have  occurred  to  some  minds  that,  by 
attaching  so  much  importance  to  the  human 
power,  we  take  away  the  one  great  element 
in  salvation  —  its  Divine  freeness  through 
the  grace  of  God. 

Is  not  religion  for  the  poor  and  illiterate  ? 
is  not  the  way  easy  to  find  ?  Thank  God  it 
is  so  !  So  little  can  man  do  to  enlighten  it. 
But  he  can  do  something,  and  he  ought  to 

18 


274          SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS 

do  more.  In  this  more  than  in  anything 
else  he  is  his  brother's  keeper.  Not  for 
himself  does  man  live.  Every  action  of 
every  man  has  an  ancestry  and  a  posterity 

—  an  ancestry  and  a  posterity  in  other  lives. 
"  Each   reads  his  fate  in  the  other's  eyes," 
says  Emerson.     "  I  am  a  part  of  all  that  I 
have  met,"  says  Tennyson.    And  how  do  you 
explain    that  most  wonderful    phenomenon, 
which   is  as  surprising   a   contemplation  to 
some  minds  as  the  thought  of  eternity  itself 

—  the  silence  of  God?    God  keeping  silence ! 
And  man  doubting  and  sinning  and  repent- 
ing all  alone,   and    groping    blindfold    after 
truth,  and  losing  his  way  and  working  out 
his  salvation  with  painful  trembling  and  fear ! 
It  is  an  unfathomable  mystery ;  but  may  it 
not  be,  in  small  part,  just  for  this  that,  on 
the  one  hand,  God  offers  man  the  glory  and 
honour  of  sharing    His   work ;  and  on   the 
other,  that    He   wishes  human  souls  to  be 
graven  with  the  marks  of  other  human  souls 
in  all  their  free  and  infinite  variety  ?     God 
is  a  God  of  variety.     No  two  leaves  are  the 
same,   no   two   sand   grains,   no   two  souls. 


SPIRITUAL   DIAGNOSIS          275 

And  as  the  universe  would  be  but  a  poor 
affair  if  every  leaf  were  the  counterpart  of 
the  oak  leaf  or  the  birch,  so  would  the  spirit- 
ual world  present  but  a  sorry  spectacle  if  we 
were  all  duplicates  of  John  Calvin.  There- 
fore has  God  made  room  for  individual  ac- 
tion in  the  building  up  of  His  kingdom  upon 
earth ;  and  therefore  it  is  not  a  presumption 
but  a  duty  for  every  man  to  be  moulding 
and  making  the  souls  around  him,  to  be 
perfecting  and  guiding  his  own  faculties  for 
this  great  work. 

The  great  danger  in  doing  this  work,  next 
to  doing  it  without  any  education  for  it,  is 
to  overdo  it.  In  dealing  with  a  case  which 
is  once  put  into  our  hands  we  are  apt  to  con- 
sider it  too  much  of  a  professional  and  per- 
sonal matter.  Our  influence  has  become 
too  conscious.  We  have  found  what  a  pow- 
erful thing  it  may  become,  and  we  seek  a 
"  reputation  for  influence."  Thus  our  pride 
is  smitten  if  success  does  not  at  once  crown 
our  efforts,  and  we  attempt  to  second  them 
by  unlawful  means.  We  assume  the  didactic 
when  we  should  simply  be  attractive  or  sug- 


276          SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS 

gestive.  We  encourage  the  favourable  and 
forget  to  notice  an  unfavourable  symptom. 
We  supply  allopathic  when  prudence  would 
suggest  homoeopathic  doses.  And,  finally,  we 
assume  too  much  upon  ourselves,  forgetting 
that  we  are  but  fellow-workers  together  with 
God,  and  by  taking  too  officious  an  interest, 
the  individual,  making  nothing  of  it,  is  apt 
to  throw  the  responsibility  of  non-success 
upon  us,  and  so  spoil  not  only  our  whole  in- 
fluence with  others,  but  his  own  chance  of 
being  bettered  in  the  future  by  others. 

There  are  also  limits  to  the  exercise  of 
this  power  which  are  as  yet  not  well  defined, 
and  which  rest  at  present  upon  no  religio- 
philosophic  basis,  but  on  mere  empiricism. 
The  whole  subject,  indeed,  rests  in  the 
meantime  only  upon  the  merest  individual 
empiricism;  and  it  is  a  matter  of  profound 
regret  that  so  sacred  and  important  a  sub- 
ject should  exist  in  such  a  dishevelled  state 
when  the  scientific  method,  which  is  being 
applied  to  so  many  trivial  matters,  could  be 
so  easily  applied  to  :  .  We  can  conceive  of 
some  minds  being  deeply  shocked  to  hear 


SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS          277 

of  scientific  observations  being  taken  on  a 
human  soul,  and  adjustments  made  to  it,  and 
results  calculated  as  if  it  were  a  mere  ques- 
tion of  spectrum  analysis.  But  the  irrever- 
ence is  only  in  the  words.  We  do  wish  a 
scientific  treatment  of  the  subject;  and  if 
there  is  anything  to  sadden  and  humble  in 
the  contemplation  of  the  religious  work  of 
the  day,  it  is  the  thought  of  the  crude  and 
slipshod  treatment  of  one  of  the  most  sacred 
subjects  in  the  religious  life. 

We  are  not  ignoring  the  power  of  God 
in  conversion  by  not  speaking  of  it.  You 
say  He  can  work  with  the  roughest  tools 
even  on  the  finest  of  marbles.  Without 
denying  it,  He  would  not  polish  diamonds 
on  grindstones  if  He  could  get  lapidaries  to 
do  it  better.  It  won't  do  to  talk  religiously, 
or  complacently,  or  blasphemously  of  trusting 
in  Him  when  we  are  too  lazy  to  qualify 
ourselves  for  being  worth  the  using  in  His 
service.  Don't  fear  that  we  shall  become 
too  acute  at  diagnosing  and  prescribing  for 
souls,  and  so  take  the  matter  out  of  God's 
hands. 


278          SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS 

And  now,  in  conclusion,  as  to  the  great 
subject  of  the  training  and  exercise  of  the 
power  of  spiritual  discernment,  what  is  it 
possible  for  us  to  say  ?  We  can  indeed  but 
guess  at  it.  Those  who  have  thought  of  it 
have  confessed  that  everything  yet  remains 
to  be  done.  Thus  one  of  the  keenest  minds 
of  New  England  has  said,  "  The  school  of 
the  future  may  be  called  a  Life  School, 
whose  object  is  to  study  the  strength  and 
weakness  of  human  nature  minutely,  .  .  . 
to  understand  men,  and  to  deal  with  them 
face  to  face,  and  heart  to  heart,  .  .  .  and  in 
regard  to  such  a  school  as  this,  while  there 
has  been  much  done  incidentally,  the  revised 
procedure  of  education  yet  awaits  develop- 
ment and  accomplishment."  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  in  his  Yale  lecture  (on  preaching), 
has  given  to  this  subject  perhaps  by  far  the 
most  valuable  popular  contribution  of  the 
age.  His  chapter  on  the  study  of  Human 
Nature  is  especially  discriminating,  and  only 
the  knowledge  that  there  must  now  be  few 
into  whose  hands  that  work  has  not  fallen 
prevents  us  stealing  time  to  make  length- 


SPIRITUAL   DIAGNOSIS          279 

ened  quotations.  Let  two  suffice  (page  85 
and  page  94).  Beecher,  had  he  been  less 
of  a  preacher  and  more  of  a  pastor,  could 
have  been  one  of  the  greatest  students  of 
the  soul.  As  it  is,  he  is  surpassed  by  few, 
perhaps  by  none  in  this  country,  only  by 
Dr.  Spencer1  in  his  own.  Spurgeon  is  not 
so  much  of  a  practical  analyst  as  a  self- 
introspectionist.  So  also  was  Thomas  a 
Kempis  and  Blaise  Pascal,  and  pious  John 
Hervey  and  quaint  Robert  Bruce,  and  so 
also  in  a  sense  was  Dr.  Duncan  and  Dr. 
Goulburn,  who  has  done  for  spirituality  what 
Burton  did  for  melancholy.  The  Puritan 
writers,  and  pre-eminent  among  them  Baxter 
and  Owen,  were  skilled  analysts  of  human 
nature,  but  they  seem  to  have  applied  their 
power  more  in  the  pulpit  than  the  pew. 
In  this  respect,  too,  Bunyan  was  quite  un- 
surpassed, and  in  some  of  his  sermons,  spe- 
cially his  famous  "last"  one,  the  most 
masterly  specimens  of  this  kind  of  work 
are  to  be  found. 

Yet   with    all   this   perfection    there    was 

»  Author  of  "Pastor's  Sketches." 


280          SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS 

always  something  wrong  about  these  men 
from  the  practical  point  of  view.  They 
knew  so  much  about  humanity  that  they 
had  lost  what  of  it  they  had  themselves  in 
the  pursuit  of  it  in  others.  Although  they 
are  always  called  practical  hands,  they  are 
only  so  in  a  gross  sense.  They  were  most 
of  them  wanting  in  that  delicacy  of  handling 
which  makes  analysis  effective  instead  of  in- 
sulting; and  many  of  the  Puritans  were 
quite  destitute  of  the  foremost  quality  which 
distinguishes  the  successful  diagnosist  — 
respect,  veneration  even,  for  the  soul  of 
another.  A  man  may  be  ever  so  gross  and 
vulgar,  but  when  you  come  to  deal  with  the 
deepest  that  is  in  him,  he  becomes  sensitive 
and  feminine.  Brusqueness  and  an  impolite 
familiarity  may  do  very  well  when  dealing 
with  his  brains,  but  without  tenderness  and 
courtesy  you  can  only  approach  his  heart  to 
shock  it.  The  whole  of  etiquette  is  founded 
on  respect;  and  by  far  the  highest  and 
tenderest  etiquette  is  the  etiquette  of  soul 
and  soul. 

To   know  and  remember  the  surpassing 


SPIRITUAL   DIAGNOSIS  281 

dignity  of  the  human  soul  —  for  its  own 
sake,  for  its  great  God-like  elements,  for  its 
immortality,  above  all  for  His  sake  who 
made  it  and  gave  Himself  for  it  —  this  is  the 
first  axiom  to  be  remembered.  Many  men 
study  men,  but  not  to  sympathise  with  them: 
the  lawyer  for  gain,  the  artist  for  fame,  the 
actor  for  applause,  the  novelist  for  profes- 
sion. How  well  up  is  the  actor  in  plot  and 
passion  and  intrigue!  how  deftly  can  the 
novelist  anatomise  love  and  jealousy,  ven- 
geance and  hate  !  And  when  there  are  men 
found  to  study  human  nature  for  its  own 
sake,  or  for  filthy  lucre's  sake,  shall  there  be 
none  to  do  it  for  man's  sake  —  for  God's 
sake  ?  There  is  one  great  reason  why  the 
ministry  of  so  many  great  and  holy  men  has 
been  so  far  from  being  what  is  called  a  con- 
verting ministry.  We  read  their  biographies, 
and  shrink  into  nothingness  at  the  contem- 
plation of  such  holiness  and  saintliness  of 
life  as  we  had  never  dreamed  possible  to 
man,  and  we  marvel,  and  greatly,  that  one 
irreligious,  unconverted  man  should  be  left 
in  the  whole  countryside ;  but  we  find  indeed 


282          SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS 

that  their  parish  was  no  better  than  its 
neighbours.  And  the  explanation  is  plain. 
Those  men  laboured  under  a  terrible  disease 
—  it  is  called  Theophobia  —  the  name  ex- 
plains itself.  A  minister  catches  it,  and  his 
power  is  gone.  Men  are  awed  by  it,  vener- 
ate it  as  they  venerate  few  things  else. 
They  will  speak  of  it  and  praise  it,  but  never 
imitate  it.  It  is  a  grand  but  useless  spec- 
tacle. Those  who  have  it  become  wrapped 
up  in  one  subject ;  and  though  that  be  the 
highest  of  all,  it  is  nevertheless  a  monstros- 
ity when  followed  to  the  exclusion  of  every- 
thing else.  The  sympathies  of  these  men 
are  all  and  always  Godwards.  They  are 
always  vindicating  God.  Their  whole  at- 
mosphere is  of  God.  They  have  left  earth 
before  their  time.  They  have  left  human 
nature  in  the  lurch ;  they  have  forgotten 
humanity,  and  humanity  can  no  longer  profit 
by  them,  it  can  only  wonder  at  them.  Their 
thoughts  go  always  straight  up  to  God,  and 
are  never  healthy  enough  to  be  refracted 
upon  man.  Now  to  get  to  God  is  a  high 
thing,  but  they  only  get  at  one  side  of  Him. 


SPIRITUAL  DIAGNOSIS          283 

They  don't  see  over  to  the  other  side,  which 
is  inclined  towards  man.  Yet  to  get  to  man 
by  way  of  God,  and  God  by  way  of  man,  is 
the  only  way  to  keep  the  entire  health  of  the 
soul. 

We  have  much  yet  to  say  of  this  study, 
but  the  subject  must  end  almost  before  it  is 
begun.  The  one  great  thing  is  to  study  life 
earnestly  and  practically  and  realistically. 

We  must  aim  at  the  manly  and  sturdy 
type  of  the  religious  diagnosist ;  we  must  try 
to  be,  as  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  forcibly 
says,  "  a  man  that  knows  men  in  the  street, 
at  their  work,  human  nature  in  its  shirt- 
sleeves —  who  makes  bargains  with  deacons 
instead  of  talking  over  texts  with  them,  and 
a  man  who  has  found  out  that  there  are 
plenty  of  praying  rogues  and  swearing  saints 
in  the  world." 

One  thing  I  can  assure  you  of.  If  any 
man  develops  this  faculty  of  reading  others, 
of  reading  them  in  order  to  profit  by  them, 
he  will  never  be  without  practice.  Men  do 
not  say  much  about  these  things,  but  the 


284          SPIRITUAL   DIAGNOSIS 

amount  of  spiritual  longing  in  the  world  at 
the  present  moment  is  absolutely  incredible. 
No  one  can  ever  even  faintly  appreciate  the 
intense  spiritual  unrest  which  seethes  every- 
where around  him ;  but  one  who  has  tried  to 
discern,  who  has  begun  by  private  experi- 
ment, by  looking  into  himself,  by  taking 
observations  upon  the  people  near  him  and 
known  to  him,  has  witnessed  a  spectacle 
sufficient  to  call  for  the  loudest  and  most 
emphatic  action.  Gentlemen,  I  have  but 
vaguely  hinted  at  this  subject ;  I  venture  to 
think  it  a  question  of  vital  interest,  giving 
life  a  mission,  giving  a  new  and  burning 
interest  even  to  the  most  commonplace 
surroundings,  and  opening  up  a  field  for 
life-long  study  and  effort. 


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